■ 


» 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  NATIONS 


I2MO,  ILLUSTRATED,  PER  VOL.,  $1.50  : % LEATHER,  GILT  TOP,  $1.75 


THE  EARLIER  VOLUMES  ARE 

THE  STORY  OF  GREECE.  By  Prof.  Jas.  A.  Harrison 

THE  STORY  OF  ROME.  By  Arthur  Gilman 

THE  STORY  OF  THE  JEWS.  By  Prof.  Jas.  K.  Hosmer 

THE  STORY  OF  CHALDEA.  By  Z.  A.  Ragozin 

THE  STORY  OF  GERMANY.  By  S.  Baking-Gould 

THE  STORY  OF  NORWAY.  By  Prof.  H.  H.  Boyesen 

THE  STORY  OF  SPAIN.  By  E.  E.  and  Susan  Hale 

THE  STORY  OF  HUNGARY.  By  Prof.  A.  Vamb£ry 

THE  STORY  OF  CARTHAGE.  By  Prof.  Alfred  J.  Church 

THE  STORY  OF  THE  SARACENS.  By  Arthur  Gilman 

THE  STORY  OF  THE  MOORS  IN  SPAIN.  By  Stanley  Lane-Pools 

THE  STORY  OF  THE  NORMANS.  By  Sarah  O.  Jewett 

THE  STORY  OF  PERSIA.  By  S.  G.  W.  Benjamin 

THE  STORY  OF  ANCIENT  EGYPT.  By  Geo.  Rawlinson 

THE  STORY  OF  ALEXANDER  S EMPIRE.  By  Prof.  J.  P.  Mahafpy 

THE  STORY  OF  ASSYRIA.  By  Z.  A.  Ragozin 

THE  STORY  OF  IRELAND.  By  Hon.  Emily  Lawless 

THE  STORY  OF  THE  GOTHS.  By  Henry  Bradley 

THE  STORY  OF  TURKEY.  By  Stanley  Lane-Poole 

THE  STORY  OF  MEDIA,  BABYLON,  AND  PERSIA.  By  Z.  A.  Ragozin 

THE  STORY  OF  MEDIAEVAL  FRANCE.  By  Gustave  Masson 

THE  STORY  OF  MEXICO.  By  Susan  Hale 

THE  STORY  OF  HOLLAND.  By  James  E.  Thorold  Rogers. 

THE  STORY  OF  PHOENICIA.  By  George  Rawlinson 

THE  STORY  OF  THE  HANSA  TOWNS.  By  Helen  Zimmern 

THE  STORY  OF  EARLY  BRITAIN.  By  Prof.  Alfred  J.  Church 

THE  STORY  OF  THE  BARBARY  CORSAIRS.  By  Stanley  Lane-Poole 

THE  STORY  OF  RUSSIA.  By  W.  R.  Morfill 

THE  STORY  OF  THE  JEWS  UNDER  ROME.  By  W.  D.  Morrison 

THE  STORY  OF  SCOTLAND.  By  John  Mackintosh 

THE  STORY  OF  SWITZERLAND.  By  R.  Stead  and  Mrs.  A.  Hug 

THE  STORY  OF  PORTUGAL.  By  H.  Morse  Stephens 

THE  STORY  OF  THE  BYZANTINE  EMPIRE.  By  C.  W.  C.  Oman 

THE  STORY  OF  SICILY.  By  E.  A.  Freeman 

THE  STORY'  OF  THE  TUSCAN  REPUBLICS.  By  Bella  Duffy 

THE  STORY  OF  POLAND.  By  W.  R.  Morfill 

THE  STORY  OF  PARTHIA.  By  George  Rawlinson 

THE  STORY  OF  JAPAN.  By  David  Murray 

THE  STORY  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  RECOYERY  OF  SPAIN.  By  H.  E.  Watt 
THE  STORY  OF  AUSTRALASIA.  By  Greville  Tregarthen 
THE  STORY  OF  SOUTHERN  AFRICA.  By  Geo.  M.  Theal 
THE  STORY  OF  VENICE.  By  Alethea  Wiel 

THE  STORY  OF  THE  CRUSADES.  By  T.  S.  Archer  and  C.  L.  Kingsford 

THE  STORY  OF  VEDIC  INDIA.  By  Z.  A.  Ragozin 

THE  STORY  OF  BOHEMIA.  By  C.  E.  Maurice 

THE  STORY  OF  CANADA.  By  J.  G.  Boukinot 

THE  STORY  OF  BRITISH  RULE  IN  INDIA.  By  R.  W.  Frazer 

THE  STORY  OF  THE  BALKANS.  By  William  Miller 

For  prospectus  of  the  series  see  end  of  this  volume 
G.  P.  PUTNAM’S  SONS,  NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2016 


https://archive.org/details/britishindia00fraz_0 


THE  NORTH  GATE.  — OLD  DELHI. 

( From  a Painting  by  IV.  Daniels , R.A.) 


^I|e  ^torjj  of  the  Rations 


BRITISH  INDIA 


BY 

R.  W.  FRAZER,  LL.B.,  I.C.S.  (retired) 

LECTURER  IN  TELUGU  AND  TAMIL  UNIVERSITY  COLLEGE  AND  IMPERIAL 
INSTITUTE,  ETC. 


NEW  YORK 

G.  P.  PUTNAM’S  SONS 
LONDON  : T.  FISHER  UNWIN 
1897 


Copyright,  1897,  by 
G.  P.  PUTNAM’S  SONS 
Entered  at  Stationers’  Hall,  London 
By  T.  FISHER  UNWIN 


Cbe  TRnicfcerbocfcer  press,  IRew  12orls 


PREFACE. 


I HAVE  considered  it  best  not  to  include  in  foot-notes 
or  in  the  body  of  this  short  Story  of  Indian  History 
references  to  the  many  authorities  I have  consulted. 
To  have  done  so  would  have  broken  the  narrative 
and  been  of  no  service  to  the  reader  for  whom  the 
Story  is  intended.  As  far  as  possible  original  sources 
of  information  have  been  relied  on,  while  all  recent 
works  of  any  importance  on  Indian  History  have 
been  read  or  consulted.  To  the  numerous  works 
of  Sir  W.  Wilson  Hunter — including  the  “Rulers 
of  India”  Series  he  has  edited — I would  especially 
acknowledge  indebtedness,  and  this  with  particular 
gratitude  as  it  was  his  writings  which  first,  over 
twenty-five  years  ago,  inspired  me  with  a love  for 
India  and  its  people. 

Sir  George  Birdwood’s  exhaustive  and  learned 
“ Report  on  the  Old  Records  of  the  India  Office,” 
Captain  Mahan’s  “ Influence  of  Sea-Power  upon 
History,”  Professor  G.  W.  Forrest’s  “ Selections 
from  the  State  Papers  of  the  Foreign  Department 

of  India,”  and  “ The  History  of  the  Portuguese  in 

\ii 


Vlll 


PREFACE. 


India,”  by  Mr.  F.  C.  Danvers,  have  all  been  most 
valuable  and  suggestive. 

Throughout  the  Story  attention  has  been  centred 
more  on  the  main  factors  which  led  to  the  foundation 
and  expansion  of  British  Empire  in  India  than  to  mere 
details  of  military  operations  or  of  administration. 

The  early  history  of  commerce  between  the  East 
and  the  West,  the  gradual  passing  of  the  course 
of  that  commerce  from  the  Mediterranean  to  the 
route  round  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  the  long 
struggle  between  the  Dutch,  French,  and  English 
for  predominance  which  ultimately  left  England 
at  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century  in  com- 
plete possession  of  the  seas  and  absolute  command 
over  the  Eastern  trade,  are  traced  for  the  purpose 
of  enabling  the  reader  to  gain  a clear  insight  into 
the  primary  factors  underlying  British  Dominion  in 
India.  The  gradual  decay  of  the  Mughal  Empire 
and  loosening  of  all  controlling  authority  over 
outlying  principalities  are  shown  to  have  been  the 
secondary  elements  which  left  India  as  a field  for 
the  statesmancraft  of  Hastings,  who  extended  the 
British  influence  from  its  secure  basis  in  the  delta 
of  the  Ganges — where  it  had  been  established  by 
Clive — across  India  to  Bombay  in  the  west  and  down 
to  Madras  in  the  south. 

After  a careful  consideration  of  the  State  Papers, 
edited  by  Professor  Forrest,  Sir  John  Strachey’s 
“ Hastings  and  the  Rohilla  War,”  Sir  James  Stephen’s 
“Nuncomar  and  Impey,”  Sir  Alfred  Lyall’s  “Warren 
Hastings,”  Mr.  Beveridge’s  “ The  Trial  of  Maharaja 
Nanda  Kumar,”  and  contemporary  papers,  I have 


PREFACE. 


IX 


endeavoured  to  give  an  unbiassed  account  of  the 
career  and  policy  of  Warren  Hastings. 

The  further  conquests  and  acquisitions  by  a long 
series  of  Governors-General,  from  those  of  the  Mar- 
quess Wellesley  down  to  the  annexation  of  Upper 
Burma,  in  the  present  day,  by  Lord  Dufferin,  have 
been  but  the  inevitable  results  of  the  policy  inaugu- 
rated by  Clive  and  Hastings. 

The  important  article,  by  Sir  W.  Wilson  Hunter 
in  the  May  number  of  the  Fortnightly  Review  for 
1896,  detailing  the  discovery  by  him  of  evidence  that 
as  early  as  1681  a movement  was  started  by  Fell, 
Bishop  of  Oxford,  for  the  purpose  of  the  “Conversion 
of  the  Natives”  to  Christianity,  was  unfortunately 
received  too  late  for  reference  in  the  account  of 
Education  and  early  efforts  made  for  the  spread  of 
Christianity  in  India. 

Miss  E.  J.  Beck  has  kindly  placed  at  my  disposal 
two  photographs  taken  by  her,  and  reproduced  on 
pages  55  and  338  ; while  to  the  kindness  of  the 
publishers  of  Mr.  James  Samuelson’s  “ India  Past 
and  Present,”  I am  indebted  for  permission  to  re- 
produce the  photograph  on  page  293. 

The  spelling  of  Indian  words  is  that  adopted  by 
the  Government  of  India  in  Sir  W.  Wilson  Hunters 
Gazetteer  of  India  : — a as  in  woman  ; a as  in  father  ; 
i as  in  polfce  ; i as  in  intrzgue  ; 0 as  in  c<?ld  ; u as  in 
bwll  ; h as  in  sure  ; e as  in  grey.  The  popular  mode 
of  spelling  is  used  in  the  case  of  well-known  places, 
and  in  extracts  the  mode  of  spelling  used  therein 
is  retained. 

R.  W.  FRAZER. 

London  Institution. 


CLASSIFIED  CONTENTS. 


Early  History  of  Indian  Commerce  . . 1-26 

Ancient  Trade,  1-4 — Invasions  of  Alexander  the  Great,  4-6 
— Intercourse  between  East  and  West,  6—8 — Muhammad, 
8-10 — Cities  of  the  Mediterranean,  11-12— Portuguese  Dis- 
coveries and  Trade,  12-20 — Dutch  and  English,  21-22 — 
Early  Travellers,  22-24— Eorly  Voyages,  24-26. 


II. 

Rise  of  the  Honourable  East  India  Company  27-47 

The  First  Voyage,  27-30— Subsequent  Voyages  and  Hostility 
of  Portuguese  and  Dutch,  31-36 — Profits  of  Eastern  Trade, 
36-38— Early  Settlements,  39-40— Wars  with  Holland  and 
France,  41-45 — England  remains  supreme  maritime  power, 
43-46 — The  United  Company  or  Honourable  East  India 
Company,  46-47. 


111. 

India  on  the  Eye  of  Conquest  . 48-67 

Early  Invasions  of  India,  48-56 — The  Aryans,  5I-55 — Mu- 
hammadan  Invasions,  55-57— The  Mughal  Emperors,  57-67 
—The  Embassy  of  Sir  Thomas  Roe.  59-62— Break-up  of 
the  Empire,  62-66— Anarchy  and  Weakness  of  Oriental 
Troops,  65-67. 


xi 


CLASSIFIED  CONTENTS. 


xii 


IV. 

PAGE 

French  Efforts  to  Establish  an  Empire 

in  India £8-77 

French  in  South  India,  68-69 — The  Maraihas  and  Native 
Princes  of  South  India,  69-70 — Dupleix  and  French  Suc- 
cesses, 70-75 — Capture  of  Madras  and  Siege  of  Trichino- 
poli,  71-75 — Clive  to  the  rescue,  77. 

V. 


Robert  Clive 78-118 

Early  Life,  78-80 — Defence  of  Arcot,  83-84 — At  Kaveripak, 
85-86 — At  Trichinopoli,  86-88 — Returns  to  England,  89 — 
Arrival  at  Madras,  90 — Black  Hole  of  Calcutta  91-93 — 
Defeat  of  Siraj-ud-Daula,  95-96 — French  surrender  Chan- 
dranagar,  97 — Aminchand  deceived,  97-98 — Plassey,  99-102 
— French  driven  from  Northern  Circars,  103 — Dutch 
defeated  at  Biderra,  104 — French  Reverses  in  South  India, 
105-106 — Return  to  England,  107 — Misrule  in  Bengal, 

1 07-111— Clive  sent  out  to  restore  order,  111-112 — Reforms 
and  Discontent,  113-1 15  — Famine  and  Parliamentary 
Inquiry,  117 — Death  ; Lord  North's  Regulating  Act  of 
1773  ; The  New  Governor-General  and  Council,  118. 


VI. 


Warren  Hastings 1 19-150 

Early  Service,  120-122— Rise  of  the  Marathas,  122—123 — 

The  RohillaWar,  125-127 — Story  of  Nanda  Kumar,  129-133 
— Hastings  First  Governor-General,  13c — His  Council  and 
Philip  Francis,  130-135 — “'Declaration  of  Independence” 
and  War  with  France,  134-135 — Hastings  calls  on  Raja  of 
Benares,  and  Nawab  of  Oudh  for  contributions,  137-139 — 

The  Begams  of  Oudh,  139 — Maratha  War,  140-143 — War 
with  Haidar  All,  144-147— Sea  tights  with  French,  147- 
148 — Peace  of  Versailles,  148 — Pitt’s  New  India  Bill,  149 — 
Impeachment  of  Hastings,  150 — Character,  150. 


VII. 

Lord  Cornwallis  and  Sir  John  Shore.  151-160 

War  with  Tipu,  152-154 — Permanent  Settlement,  154—158  — 
Judicial  Reforms,  158-159— Private  Trade  allowed,  159. 


CLASSIFIED  COy TENTS. 


XI 11 


VIII. 

PAGE 

Establishment  of  British  Supremacy  — 

Marquess  Wellesley.  . . 161-185 

War  with  Tipu  and  Capture  of  Seringapatam,  163-168— 
Death  of  Tipu,  167-168 — Treaty  of  Lucknow,  169-171 — The 
Maratha  Armies,  17 1-174— Treaty  of  Bassein,  174— Maratha 
War,  175-180 — Monson's  Retreat  before  Holkar,  178-180 — 
Siege  of  Bhartpur,  180 — Recall  of  Wellesley  and  “ Admira- 
tion and  Gratitude  ” of  the  Company,  181 — Second  Adminis- 
tration of  Lord  Cornwallis,  181 — Mutiny  at  Vellore,  181- 
183— Lord  Minto,  183 — Conference  of  Tilsit,  183 — Capture 
of  Java,  184 — Conversion  of  Debt.  185. 


IX. 

Marquess  of  Hastings — Extension  of  Influ- 
ence over  Native  States  . . . 186-200 

Ghurka  War,  188-190 — The  Pindari  War,  190-191 — Ma- 
ratha War,  192-197 — Banking  Firm  of  Palmer  and  Co.,  198 
— Resignation,  198 — Indian  Trade  thrown  open,  198-199 — 
Revenue  Settlement  of  Madras,  199— Christianity  in  India 
and  a Bishop  appointed,  199-200. 


X. 

Lord  Amherst— First  Burmese  War  . 201-204 

War  Proclaimed,  202 — Bengal  Sepoys  refuse  to  cross  the 
Sea,  202 — Peace,  203 — Siege  and  Capture  of  Bhartpur,  203- 
204. 


XI. 

Lord  William  Bentinck — Commencement 

of  Modern  History  of  British  India  205-215 

Financial  Reforms,  205-206 — Revenue  Settlement  of  North- 
West  Provinces,  206 — Abolition  of  Sati  or  Widow-Burning, 
206-211  — Suppression  of  the  Thags,  2H-214  — Renewal 
of  the  Charter  ; trade  to  China  thrown  open,  214 — Lord 
Macaulay  and  Education,  214-215. 


XIV 


CLASSIFIED  CONTENTS. 


XII. 

PAGE 

Lord  Auckland  — Lord  Ellexborough  — 

Afghanistan 216-239 

Afghanistan  and  the  Punjab,  216-217  — Treaty  of  Turk- 
manchi,  217  — Siege  of  Herat,  218  — Russian  Embassy 
received  at  Kabul,  218-219— War  Declared,  219 — The  Cam- 
paign, 219—224 — Occupation  of  Afghanistan,  223-226 — Out- 
break at  Kabul,  227— British  Position  Untenable,  229— 
Macnaghten  makes  terms,  229—  Secret  Negotiations,  230- 
Assassination  of  Macnaghten,  230— The  Retreat,  231-233 
—Dr.  Brydon  reaches  Jalalabad,  233-234— The  Avenging 
Army,  235-236 — Lord  Ellenborough  and  Withdrawal  from 
Afghanistan,  235-237— Conquest  of  Sind,  237-238— Final 
Maratha  War,  238-239. 


XIII 

Lord  Hardinge — The  Sikhs  and  Annexa- 
tion of  the  Punjab  ....  240-259 

Ranjit  Singh,  Character  and  Conquests,  240-244— The 
Sikhs  and  their  Gurus,  245-246— The  Army  or  Khalsa,  247- 
249 — First  Sikh  War,  250-255— Lord  Dalhousie  and  the 
Second  Sikh  War,  255-258— Annexation  of  the  Punjab,  258- 
259. 


XIV. 


The  Mutiny 260-317 


Annexations  of  Lord  Dalhousie,  262-268— Oudh,  262-264— 
Doctrine  of  Lapse,  265— Rani  of  Jhansi  and  Nana  Sahib, 
266-267 — Railway  Minute  and  Despatch  of  Sir  C.  Wood, 
268  — The  People  of  India,  268-270  — The  Sepoys  and 
Previous  Mutinies,  270-272 — Conversions  to  Christianity, 
273-274 — Unrest  and  Intrigues,  274-276 — The  Greased 
Cartridges,  276—277  — Manghal  Pandi,  278  Mutiny  at 
Meerut,  280-282 — The  Rebels  at  Delhi,  283-285 — The 
English  before  Delhi,  285-286 — Measures  of  Lord  Canning, 
286-288— Defence  of  Arrah,  288-289— Neill  at  Benares  and 
Allahabad,  289-290 — Wheeler’s  Defence  of  Cawnpur,  290- 
291— Massacre  of  the  Garrison,  291-294— Henry  Lawrence 
secures  Lucknow,  294 — Havelock  s March  to  Caw  npui,  294— 
298 — Attempts  to  reach  Lucknow,  299-300 — John  Lawrence 
holds  the  Punjab,  301— Fall  of  Delhi,  302-303— Havelock 
and  Outran!  reach  Lucknow,  3°3_3°5 — Sir  Colin  Campbell  s 
Relief  of  Lucknow,  305-309— Retreat,  309— Finai  Capture 


CLASSIFIED  COMTE. XT S. 


XV 


of  Lucknow,  310 — Sir  Hugh  Rose  in  Central  India,  311-314 
— India  passes  from  the  Company  to  the  Queen,  314 — The 
Proclamation,  315— Changes  in  the  Sepoy  Army,  315 — The 
Debt  from  the  Mutiny,  315-316 — Financial  Reforms,  316 — 
Death  of  Lord  Canning,  316-317. 


XV. 


India  under  the  Crown  . . . 318-352 

Lord  Elgin  and  Sir  William  Denison,  318 — The  Wahabis, 
318-319— The  Bhutan  War,  319-320 — Sir  John  Lawrence, 
Governor-General  (Viceroy)  319 — Famine  in  Orissa,  321- 
322— Irrigation  and  Railways,  323-324 — Financial  Crisis  in 
Bombay,  324— Afghanistan  and  “Non-Intervention,”  325- 

327 —  Lord  Mayo  and  Russia,  327-328 — Financial  Reforms, 

328- 329 — Assassination  of  Lord  Mayo,  329-330  — Lord 
Northbrook  and  Afghanistan,  331-332 — Famine,  Gaekwar 
of  Baroda,  333-334 — Lord  Lytton,  334 — Queen  proclaimed 
Empress  of  India,  334 — Famine  in  South  India,  334 — 
License  Tax,  334 — Embassy  forced  on  Afghanistan,  334- 
336 — Assassination  of  Sir  Louis  Cavagnari,  337 — War,  337— 
341—  Disaster  at  Maiwand,  341 — March  of  Sir  Frederick 
Roberts,  341-342  — Reforms  of  Lord  Ripon,  342— Lord 
Dufferin  and  Annexation  of  Upper  Burma,  342 — The  Claim 
to  Panjdeh,  343-344 — Lord  Lansdovvne  and  the  National 
Congress.  344-345— Manipur,  345-346 — Chitral,  346-351 — 
Limits  of  British  Territory,  351-352. 


XVI. 

Moral  and  Material  Progress  under 

British  Rule 353_39° 

Extent,  Religions,  and  Languages  of  India,  353-355 — Army 
and  Defences,  356-361 — Financial  Alarm,  362-364— Agri- 
cultural Population,  364-366 — Land  Tax  and  Revenue,  366- 
368 — Administration,  368-370  — Employment  of  Natives, 
370-374 — Railways,  Roads,  and  Sanitation,  374-375 — The 
Tansa  Reservoir  and  Periyar  Project,  375-377 — -Coal, 
Petroleum.  Iron,  377-378 — Suez  Canal,  379-380 — Cotton 
and  Cotton  Duties,  380-382 — Imports  and  Exports,  382-384 
— Education  and  Christianity,  384-387  — English  and 
Universities,  387-388 — Ultimate  Tendencies,  389-390. 


Index 


39i 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


the  north  gate — old  Delhi  ( From  a Painting  page 


by  W.  Daniels,  R.A.)  . . • Frontispiece 

MAP  OF  INDIA facing  i 

MAP  OF  ANCIENT  CARAVAN  ROUTES  ...  9 

INDIAN  SHIPS 13 

KING  OF  KOCHIN l8 

OLD  EAST  INDIA  HOUSE 27 

MUHAMMADANS  PRAYING 55 

AKBAR 59 

FORT  ST.  GEORGE 72 

ROBERT,  LORD  CLIVE 79 

FORT  OF  ARCOT 82 

WARREN  HASTINGS 136 

TIPU  SULTAN 153 

GOVERNMENT  HOUSE,  CALCUTTA  . . . .162 

DE  BOIGNE 173 

WIDOW-BURNING 207 

OUTRAM 221 

KABUL 228 

RANJIT  SINGH 242 

SEAT  OF  MUTINY 26 1 

HENRY  LAWRENCE 279 


xvi  i 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


xviii 


MEMORIAL  WELL  AT  CAWNPUR  ....  293 

SIR  COLIN  CAMPBELL,  LORD  CLYDE  . . . 306 

FAMINE  GROUP  FROM  MADRAS  ....  334 

v ji  »»  ....  334 

KABULIS 338 

MAP  OF  AFGHANISTAN 343 

MEKONG  RIVER 361 

MAP  OF  STEAM  NAVIGATION 379 

RIVER  SCENE 390 


ln2arkajid 


Kashgar 


Iv  hot  an\ 


■Kabul 


Peshawi tr° 


AFGHANISTAN 


^■Lahore] 


Sirrrh 


Cultai 


LlvcV- 


SIK  Kl'lif 


INDE-i 


L JJprPatna  ~ 


H 

Jxibbulp' 


Moor: 


<'han'h'rhu‘{ 


Bhopal 


CALCUTT- 


CENTRAL 

^•^PROV'NCES 


i Danutni 
~( Port  A 


Ellor^ 


Bombay! 


HAIDAR  AB 


^Haida: 


[Masulipatam 


/ n Cr( 
( P OVtitgu 


iMADRAi 


'ondicherry 


Laccadive 

Rolands 


Calicuivj 


to/ioH 

Q'ArunqucOar 


Cochiru 


.CEYLON 


Colombo] 


MaldiVv 


Point  de  Gallo' 


Islands 


ile  Iiast  from  Greenwich 


THE  STORY  OF  BRITISH  INDIA. 


i. 

EARLY  HISTORY  OF  INDIAN  COMMERCE. 

The  strange  story  of  the  rise  and  fall  of  once 
mighty  nations  is  one  to  which  we  dare  not  close 
our  eyes,  firm  though  our  belief  may  be  in  the 
abiding  strength  of  the  material  resources  of  our 
own  civilisation.  The  story  tells  how  other  civilisa- 
tions crumbled  to  pieces  amid  all  the  pride  and  glory 
of  their  manhood  ; it  tells  how  nation  after  nation, 
city  after  city,  rose  to  opulence  and  power  as  each 
in  turn  became  the  centre  of  commerce  between  the 
East  and  the  West,  only  to  sink  into  insignificance 
and  decay  as  if  they  had  been  struck  by  magic,  when 
the  course  of  that  commerce  drifted  elsewhere. 

On  the  banks  of  the  Nile  an  ancient  civilisation 
was  evolved  and  nurtured,  the  secrets  of  which  now 
lie  half-buried  amid  its  tombs  and  monuments 
beneath  the  desert  sand  that  sweeps  ceaselessly  over 
the  land.  Yet  in  the  days  of  Joseph  “all  countries 
came  into  Egypt  . . . for  to  buy  corn.”  Fifteen  hun- 
dred years  before  the  advent  of  Christ  its  merchants 


2 


EARLY  HISTORY  OF  INDIAN  COMMERCE. 


brought  indigo  and  muslins  from  India,  and  porcelain 
wares  from  far-off  China,  and  the  fame  of  its  mariners 
was  great,  the  memory  of  their  going  to  and  fro  living 
long  in  fable.  The  great  King  Sesostris  (Ramses  II.), 
as  narrated  by  the  historian  Diodorus  the  Sicilian, 
sent  forth,  even  before  the  days  of  Moses,  “ a navy  of 
four  hundred  sail  into  the  Red  Sea  . . . conquered  all 
Asia  . . . passed  over  the  river  Ganges,  and  likewise 
pierced  through  all  India  to  the  main  Ocean.” 

Again  in  the  rich  alluvial  tracts  lying  between  the 
Tigris  and  Euphrates  the  Babylonians  and  Assyrians 
once  held  sway,  surrounded  by  all  the  pomp  and 
splendour  of  wealth  and  luxury.  Their  ships  went 
forth  to  bring  from  India  the  teak  wood  wherewith 
the  people  of  the  city  of  Ur  budded  their  palaces  ; 
the  gold  of  the  East,  with  which  they  gilded  their 
temples  ; the  Indian  muslins,  silks,  pearls,  and  spices, 
of  more  value  than  fine  gold.  Diodorus  tells  us  how, 
two  thousand  years  before  Christ,  the  famed  Queen 
Semiramis  carried  overland  a fleet  of  two  thou- 
sand boats  to  the  Indus,  which  she  crossed  at  the 
head  of  three  million  foot-soldiers  and  two  hundred 
thousand  horsemen,  and  then  fought  the  Emperor 
Stabrobates  only  to  fall  back  defeated,  wounded 
herself  in  many  places. 

Now  the  palaces  and  temples  of  Babylon  and 
Assyria  lie  prone,  and  in  our  museums  the  fine  work 
of  her  cunning  men  is  an  empty  show  to  the  passing 
crowd. 

Tyre,  the  city  of  the  Phoenicians,  grew  in  the  days 
of  Hiram  to  be  the  mistress  of  the  seas  and  the 
“ merchant  of  the  people  for  many  isles.”  Westward 


TYRE  MISTRESS  OF  THE  SEAS. 


3 


to  Carthage,  to  Tarshish  in  Spain,  round  Libya,  till, 
as  we  are  told  by  Herodotus,  the  sun  was  on  their 
right,  the  Phoenician  ships  sailed,  some  going  East 
down  the  Red  Sea  to  Arabia  and  Ophir. 

When  Solomon  received  a mandate  from  his 
father  David  to  build  the  Temple  to  Jehovah,  it 
was  from  Tyre  that  he  summoned  wise  men  to 
bring  back  spices  and  frankincense  from  the  land  of 
the  Queen  of  Sheba,  gold  and  silver,  sandal-wood, 
ivory,  apes,  and  peacocks  from  the  land  of  Ophir, 
so  that  the  Temple  might  be  adorned  and  Solomon 
exceed  “ all  the  kings  of  the  earth  for  riches  and  for 
wisdom.”  He  founded  “ Tadmor  in  the  Wilderness” 
as  a resting-place  for  the  caravans  travelling  across 
the  desert  towards  Babylon,  the  “ city  of  merchants,” 
where  were  gathered  together  embroidered  vestments 
and  woven  carpets,  shawls  of  many  colours,  gems  and 
pearls  and  brazen  vessels  brought  from  the  Indies, 
from  Malabar,  Ceylon,  and  the  further  East  by  the 
Arabian  mariners. 

Tyre  resisted  all  the  continued  efforts  of  the 
Assyrians  to  destroy  her  commercial  prosperity  : she 
remained  the  mistress  of  the  seas  only  to  fall  before 
the  Babylonian  King  Nebuchadnezzar,  in  585  B.C.,  as 
of  her  it  had  been  foretold  by  the  Prophet  Ezekiel, 
“they  shall  make  spoil  of  thy  riches  and  make  a 
prey  of  thy  merchandise,  and  they  shall  break  down 
thy  walls  and  destroy  thy  pleasant  houses,  and  they 
shall  lay  thy  stones  and  thy  timber  and  thy  dust  in 
the  midst  of  the  water.” 

When  in  558  B.C.  the  Babylonian  Empire  fell  to 
Cyrus,  the  wealth  from  the  East  no  longer  passed  to 


4 EARLY  HISTORY  OF  INDIAN  COMMERCE. 

Phoenicia  and  Syria  through  Tadmor,  but  stayed  with 
the  Persians.  Under  Darius  Hystaspes  the  Persian 
Empire  advanced  its  conquests  as  far  as  the  Punjab, 
whence  it  drew  a yearly  tribute  of  three  hundred 
talents  of  gold,  employing  in  its  armies  the  Indian 
soldiers,  who,  clothed  in  white  cotton  and  armed 
with  bows  and  arrows,  marched  with  Xerxes  towards 
Greece  and  fought  under  Mardonius  at  Plataea. 

It  was  not  until  the  time  of  Alexander  the  Great 
that  the  trade  from  India  once  more  resumed  its 
ancient  route  down  the  Persian  Gulf,  along  the  Tigris 
through  Palmyra,  the  Tadmor  of  old,  to  enrich  the 
cities  of  the  Mediterranean. 

Alexander  the  Great,  born  in  356  B.C.,  succeeded 
his  father,  Philip  of  Macedon,  at  the  age  of  twenty. 
Having  first  curbed  the  northern  barbarians  who, 
under  Attalos,  came  swarming  down  on  his  kingdom 
from  the  Danube,  he  razed  Tyre  to  the  ground, 
reduced  Syria  and  Egypt  to  submission,  and  founded 
the  city  of  Alexandria.  He  then  passed  on  towards 
the  East,  where  he  broke  in  pieces  the  empire  of  Cyrus, 
swept  up  the  wealth  of  Babylon  and  Susa  and  slew 
Darius,  thus  avenging  the  insults  that  Xerxes  and 
Mardonius  had  offered  to  the  altars  and  temples  of 
Greece,  leaving  nought  to  tell  of  the  wealth  and 
power  of  the  Persian  nation  save  the  burned  ruins  of 
Persepolis  and  the  rifled  tomb  of  Cyrus.  Marching 
into  Bactria,  he  founded  another  Alexandria,  now 
known  to  us  as  Herat,  there  pausing  for  three  years 
before  he  set  out,  in  327  B.C.,  for  his  invasion  of  India. 

Crossing  the  river  Indus,  near  Attock,  on  a bridge 
of  boats,  he  defeated  Porus,  the  Indian  ruler  of  the 


ALEXANDER  THE  GREAT. 


s 


Punjab,  in  a pitched  battle  near  the  well-known 
modern  battlefield  of  Chilianwala,  where,  in  memory 
of  his  victory,  he  established  a city  which  he  called 
Bucephala,  after  his  charger  Bucephalus,  slain  during 
the  conflict. 

Many  are  the  stories  told  of  the  marvels  seen  by 
Alexander  and  his  soldiers  in  their  marches  through 
the  sacred  land  of  the  Five  Rivers.  With  awe- 
stricken wonder  they  had  seen  elephants  seize  armed 
soldiers  in  battle  and  hand  them  to  their  drivers  for 
slaughter;  they  had  seen  in  the  dense  forests  serpents, 
glittering  like  gold,  whose  sting  was  death,  and 
pythons  of  huge  girth  capable  of  swallowing  a deer ; 
they  had  heard  of  ants,  the  colour  of  cats  and  the  size 
of  Egyptian  wolves,  that  dug  up  the  gold  hid  in  the 
sands  of  the  deserts  of  Afghanistan,  and  mangled  the 
Indians  who  came  on  camels  to  carry  off  the  pre- 
cious metal  ; they  had  seen  fierce  dogs  seize  lions  and 
allow  their  limbs  to  be  cut  off  one  by  one  before  they 
relinquished  their  hold  ; they  had  razed  the  cities  of 
the  Kathians,  of  whom  it  was  told  that  their  custom 
was  to  burn  widows  along  with  their  deceased  hus- 
bands ; they  had  listened  when  Alexander  was 
rebuked  by  the  Indian  sages,  who  told  him  that  of 
all  his  conquests  nothing  would  remain  to  him  but 
just  as  much  earth  as  would  suffice  to  make  a grave 
to  cover  his  bones,  and  they  had  seen  with  astonish- 
ment the  ascetic  sage  Kalanos,  wearied  of  life,  give 
his  begging  bowl  and  rug  to  the  Conqueror  of  the 
World  and  ascend  the  funeral  pyre  without  emotion, 
moving  not  as  the  flames  slowly  carried  his  soul  to 
rest.  Ere  they  left  India  one  more  wonder,  stranger 


6 EARLY  HISTORY  OF  INDIAN  COMMERCE. 

to  their  eyes  than  all  others,  awaited  them.  As  they 
sailed  down  the  Indus  for  the  ocean,  the  tide,  a 
phenomenon  as  yet  unknown  to  them,  came  rolling 
up  the  river,  tossing  on  its  mighty  bore  their  frail 
ships,  while,  in  the  words  of  the  historian  Arrian,  “ to 
add  to  their  terror,  monstrous  creatures  of  frightful 
aspect,  which  the  sea  had  left,  were  seen  wandering 
about.”  The  rising  tide  rescuing  them  from  their 
position,  Alexander’s  invading  army  gladly  turned  its 
back  on  India,  leaving  behind  more  or  less  permanent 
colonies  of  Macedonians  and  allies  in  Bactria,  Taxila, 
the  Punjdb,  and  Sind. 

From  the  writings  of  the  scientific  men  and 
historians  who  accompanied  the  Macedonians  on 
their  raid  into  India,  the  Western  world  obtained  the 
first  reliable  accounts  respecting  the  social  and 
religious  life  of  the  people  of  India  at  this  early 
period. 

After  the  death  of  Alexander,  India  (as  far  as  con- 
quered) and  Bactria  fell  to  Seleukos  Nikator,  who 
made  an  alliance  with  the  renowned  Indian  monarch 
Chandragupta,  to  whom  he  gave  his  daughter  in 
marriage,  sending  Megasthenes  to  reside  as  ambas- 
sador at  the  capital  Palibothra,  said  to  have  been  a 
mighty  city,  ten  miles  long  by  two  miles  broad, 
strongly  defended,  entered  by  sixty  gates,  its  entire 
army  numbering  400,000  men  with  20,000  cavalry. 

For  many  centuries  the  interchange  of  ideas 
between  the  East  and  West  continued,  the  wide- 
spreading  influence  of  which  is  even  at  present  but 
little  realised  and  but  seldom  acknowledged. 

Asoka,  the  Constantine  of  Buddhism,  grandson  of 


EAST  AND  WEST. 


7 


Chandragupta,  ascended  the  throne  about  260  B.C., 
and  from  the  inscriptions  which  he  caused  to  be 
graven  on  rocks  we  learn  that  the  intercommunication 
between  the  East  and  the  West  was  close  enough  at 
this  period  to  enable  him  to  send  forth  missionaries 
to  Antiochus  of  Syria,  to  Ptolemy  Philadelphus  of 
Egypt,  to  Antigonus  of  Macedon,  to  Megas  of 
Cyrene,  and  to  Alexander  of  Epirus,  to  proclaim  in 
their  lands  the  gospel  of  self-control  and  respect  for 
all  life  as  taught  by  Buddha. 

Pliny,  who  died  79  A.D.,  lamented  the  drain  of  gold 
from  Rome  to  India,  which  in  his  days  amounted  to 
the  sum  of  £2, 000, 000  sterling,  sent  annually  in 
exchange  for  silks,  pearls,  sapphires,  gems,  cinnamon, 
spices,  and  other  Eastern  luxuries,  for  which  fabulous 
sums  were  paid,  and  Roman  coins  of  all  the  em- 
perors, from  Augustus  to  Hadrian,  are  still  dug  up  in 
numbers  all  over  South  India. 

It  is  now  almost  certain  that  from  the  West, 
probably  through  Palmyra,  India  first  learned  to 
construct  architectural  buildings  and  to  carve  in 
stone,  having,  previous  to  the  invasion  of  Alexander 
the  Great,  worked  out  her  own  artistic  ideals,  as  far 
as  we  know,  in  wood. 

There  still  remains  unexplained  the  strange  re- 
semblance in  form  between  the  Indian  and  Classical 
drama,  and  the  close  connection  between  early 
Indian  and  Greek  philosophy. 

The  Indian  astronomer  Garga,  who  wrote  in  the 
first  century  B.C.,  said  that  the  Greeks  were  very 
barbarians,  yet  he  hesitated  not  to  confess  that  their 
astronomy  was  worthy  of  study.  Later  astronomers, 


8 


EARLY  HISTORY  OF  IX DIAS  COMMERCE. 


such  as  Aryabhatta  and  Varaha  Mitra,  not  only 
adopted  the  Greek  zodiac  and  its  divisions,  but 
made  use  of  the  Greek  names  slightly  orientalised. 

There  were  many  routes  by  which  this  intercom- 
munication of  ideas,  religious,  artistic,  and  social,  could 
have  taken  place.  There  was  the  well-known  route 
by  the  Persian  Gulf  through  Palmyra,  a city  which 
became  so  renowned  that  Aurelian,  jealous  of  its 
wealth  and  power,  razed  it  to  the  ground  in  273  A.D., 
and  carried  off  its  Queen  Zenobia.  Arab  mariners 
also  sailed  from  India  and  the  further  East,  keeping 
close  to  the  coast  till  they  reached  Berenice  in  the 
Red  Sea,  whence  the  goods  were  transported  to 
Coptos,  thence  down  the  Nile  to  Alexandria.  Under 
such  emperors  as  the  cruel  and  dissipated  Corn- 
modus,  the  plundering  barbarian  Caracalla,  and  the 
infamous  Eleogabalus,  the  wealth  that  came  from 
the  East  through  Alexandria  to  the  imperial  city  of 
Rome  passed  away  to  Constantinople,  founded  in 
320  A.D.,  and  to  the  rising  cities  along  the  Medi- 
terranean. 

So  the  trade  between  the  East  and  the  West  grew 
and  flourished  till  suddenly  a new  power  arose, 
claiming  for  itself  the  temporal  and  spiritual  supre- 
macy over  the  whole  known  world. 

From  the  deserts  of  Arabia  came  forth  the  haughty 
message  to  Christendom,  that  Muhammad  had  pro- 
claimed himself  as  the  only  Prophet  of  the  One 
True  God.  To  all  idolaters  he  gave  the  choice 
between  accepting  his  mission  and  teachings,  and  of 
being  put  to  the  sword  ; while  all  Christians  and 
Jews  were  to  be  subdued  and  made  to  pay  tribute 


MUHAMMAD. 


9 


to  his  followers,  who  now  came  swarming  from  their 
tents,  drunk  with  a new  religious  fanaticism,  eager  to 
seek  fresh  homes  in  the  stately  palaces  of  the  lands 
they  were  soon  to  overrun. 


To  the  successors  of  Augustus  and  Artaxerxes 
summonses  were  sent,  calling  on  them  to  bow  down 
and  acknowledge  the  Divine  mission  of  the  new 
Prophet.  The  Roman  Empire — with  its  capital  at 


lO  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  INDIAN  COMMERCE. 

Constantinople — then  extended  over  all  the  lands  on 
the  borders  of  the  Mediterranean  Sea,  its  commands 
being  obeyed  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Euphrates, 
while  in  Persia  the  ancient  dynasty  of  Cyrus  and 
Darius  had  been  reinstated  when  Artaxerxes,  in  the 
third  century,  was  proclaimed  king,  and  the  religion 
of  Zoroaster,  the  belief  in  Ormuzd  and  Ahriman,  the 
contending  powers  of  light  and  darkness,  once  more 
restored. 

In  answer  to  the  summons  of  the  Prophet,  the 
Roman  emperor,  Heraclius,  fearing  danger  from 
Arabia,  sent  back  presents  ; the  proud  Persian 
monarch  tore  the  letters  he  received  in  pieces  and 
scattered  it  to  the  winds,  hearing  which  Muhammad 
swore  that  so  he  would  scatter  the  Persian  power. 

Within  the  space  of  eight  years  Bostra,  Damascus, 
Heliopolis,  Jerusalem,  Aleppo  and  Antioch  fell  before 
the  Crescent,  and  Syria  passed  for  the  next  three 
hundred  years  under  the  sway  of  the  followers  of 
Muhammad,  Persia  falling  in  636  A.D.,  after  the  battle 
of  Kadesia.  In  640  Amru  marched  into  Egypt  and 
took  possession  of  Alexandria,  leaving  the  Arabian 
conquerors  in  command  of  the  Red  Sea  and  the 
Persian  Gulf,  the  two  great  trade  routes  from  the 
East. 

One  route  alone  remained  by  which  Eastern  pro- 
duce could  reach  the  cities  of  the  Mediterranean  free 
from  the  prohibitory  dues  exacted  by  the  Muham- 
madan conquerors  : that  by  the  Indus  along  the 
ancient  route  by  the  banks  of  the  Oxus,  across  to 
the  Caspian,  thence  to  the  Black  Sea,  Constantinople, 
and  the  Mediterranean.  To  gain  possession  of  this 


CITIES  OF  THE  MEDITERRANEAN.  I I 

route,  and  to  avoid  the  duties  enforced  at  Alexandria, 
amounting  to  one-third  the  value  of  all  produce 
exported,  Venice,  founded  in  452  A.D.,  on  the  islets  of 
the  Adriatic  by  fugitives  from  North  Italy,  strove 
incessantly,  knowing  well  that  alone  by  a command 
of  the  Eastern  trade  could  she  rise  to  be  mistress 
of  the  seas.  To  the  pilgrims  of  the  Fourth  Crusade 
she  agreed  to  give  shipping  if  they  would  but  for  a 
time  forget  their  holy  mission  and  aid  in  reducing  her 
rival  Constantinople.  The  compact  was  made.  In 
1 204  Constantinople  fell,  the  rich  homes  of  its  peace- 
ful citizens  being  given  over  to  rapine  and  flames,  its 
art  treasures,  the  finest  and  most  prized  that  the 
world  has  ever  known,  being  broken  in  pieces  and 
trampled  underfoot  by  the  marauding  crusaders  and 
hired  mercenaries  of  the  merchants  of  Venice.  Count 
Baldwin  of  Flanders  was  enthroned  Emperor  of  the 
East,  the  Venetians  holding  the  forts  to  gain  command 
over  the  Eastern  trade.  Of  these  advantages  on  the 
Black  Sea  Venice  was,  however,  soon  deprived  by 
Genoa,  Pisa,  and  Florence — cities  now  eager  to  enter 
into  the  competition  for  the  monopoly  of  the  gems, 
spices,  and  silks  of  India  sent  to  the  further  West  in 
exchange  for  Easterling  or  sterling  silver.  Pisa  gave 
up  the  struggle  after  her  defeat  at  Meloria  in  1 284, 
and  in  1406  fell  subject  to  Florence,  which,  unuer 
the  Medici,  had  become  the  city  of  bankers  for  all 
nations.  Genoa  fought  on  down  to  the  fifteenth 
century  when  Venice  again  became  supreme,  selling 
the  valued  products  of  India  to  the  Flemish  mer- 
chants who  sailed  with  them  to  Sluys,  then  the 
seaport  town  of  Bruges,  to  Bergen  in  Norway, 


12  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  INDIAN  COMMERCE. 

Novgorod  in  Russia,  to  the  many  associated  towns 
of  the  Hanseatic  League,  and  also  to  their  steel- 
yard or  warehouse  on  the  Thames. 

In  these  Western  cities  it  was  known  that  the 
costly  goods  they  so  prized  came  from  the  East,  but 
the  way  there  was  unknown.  In  Portugal  Prince 
Henry  the  Navigator  spent  his  life  in  endeavouring 
to  discover  how  his  ships  might  reach  the  Indies  by 
sailing  round  Africa.  In  i486  Bartholomew  Diaz 
went  south  with  three  ships,  and  discovered  what  he 
called  “ The  Cape  of  Tempests,”  renamed  in  joy 
“ The  Cape  of  Good  Hope  ” by  King  John  II. 

In  1492  Columbus,  a Genoese,  after  offering  his 
services  in  vain  to  Genoa,  Portugal,  and  England, 
sailed  away  to  the  West,  hoping  thus  to  reach  India, 
and  discovered  America. 

When  Emmanuel  succeeded  John  II.  as  King  of 
Portugal,  he  resolved  to  send  a gentleman  of  his 
household,  Vasco  da  Gama,  to  find  out  if  land  lay 
beyond  the  wild  southern  seas. 

On  the  8th  of  July,  1497,  Vasco  da  Gama  sailed 
from  the  Tagus  with  three  small  ships,  the  Saw 
Gabriel  the  Saw  Rafael,  and  the  Saw  Miguel  each  of 
some  100  to  120  tons  burden,  having  crews  amounting 
in  all  to  170  men. 

By  the  time  Vasco  da  Gama  rounded  the  Cape  of 
Good  Hope  the  pilots  and  sailors  were  so  wearied 
from  the  incessant  labour  of  working  the  pumps  to 
keep  the  frail  ships  afloat,  and  so  terrified  by  the 
heavy  seas,  that  they  mutinied  and  demanded  that 
their  leader  should  turn  back  and  no  further  seek 
to  brave  the  unknown  perils  of  a trackless  ocean. 


INDIAN  SHIPS. 

(From  Astlcv's  “ and  Travels' 


14  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  INDIAN  COMMERCE. 

Vasco  da  Gama  at  once  placed  the  pilots  in  irons, 
threw  all  the  charts  and  instruments  of  navigation 
overboard,  declaring  that  God  would  guide  him, 
and  other  aid  he  required  not ; if  that  aid  failed, 
neither  he  nor  any  of  the  crews  would  ever  again 
see  Portugal.  So  the  ships  had  to  toil  on,  many  of 
the  sailors  dying  of  scurvy,  a disease  now  heard  of 
for  the  first  time  in  history.  Their  labours  were  at 
length  rewarded.  Eleven  months  after  they  had 
left  home  they  sighted  the  west  coast  of  India,  and 
cast  anchor  near  the  city  of  the  Zamorin,  or  Ruler 
of  the  Seas,  whence  many  people  came  crowding 
to  the  beach,  wondering  greatly  at  the  Portuguese 
ships. 

The  Zamorin  and  his  Indian  subjects  were  willing 
to  open  up  a friendly  intercourse  with  Vasco  da 
Gama  and  his  sailors,  but  the  Arab  mariners,  or 
Moors,  as  they  were  called,  who  for  many  centuries 
had  held  in  their  own  hands  the  trade  between  the 
west  coast  of  India  and  the  Persian  Gulf,  or  Red  Sea, 
were  unwilling  to  see  any  rivals  in  their  lucrative 
business.  Having  succeeded  in  inducing  Vasco  da 
Gama  to  come  on  shore,  they  carried  him  off  on 
various  pretexts  through  the  malarious  lagoons  bor- 
dering the  coast,  hoping  that  he  might  resent 
their  treatment  and  so  give  them  some  excuse  to 
slay  him  and  drive  away  his  ships.  By  quiet  patience 
he  eluded  all  the  plots  laid  against  him,  until  his 
ships  were  laden  with  such  scanty  stores  of  pepper, 
cinnamon,  and  spices  as  his  captains  were  able  to 
purchase.  Vasco  da  Gama  at  length  obtained  his 
release,  and  departed  from  Calicut,  vowing  to  come 


THE  PORTUGUESE. 


15 


back  and  wage  a war  of  extermination  against  the 
Moors — a vow  which  he  and  his  successors  ever 
afterwards  barbarously  and  ruthlessly  endeavoured 
to  fulfil.  From  Calicut  he  sailed  back  towards 
Cannanore,  where  we  hear,  as  recorded  by  Gaspar 
Correa  1 in  his  account  of  Vasco  da  Gama’s 
voyages,  of  one  of  the  many  strange  prophecies  told 
in  the  East.  It  is  there  recorded,  “ In  this  country 
of  India  they  are  much  addicted  to  soothsayers 
and  diviners.  . . . According  to  what  was  known 
later,  there  had  been  in  this  country  of  Canna- 
nore a diviner  so  diabolical  in  whom  they  believed 
so  much  that  they  wrote  down  all  that  he  said, 
and  preserved  it  like  prophecies  that  would  come  to 
pass.  They  held  a legend  from  him  in  which  it  was 
said  that  the  whole  of  India  would  be  taken  and 
ruled  over  by  a very  distant  king,  who  had  white 
people,  who  would  do  great  harm  to  those  who 
were  not  their  friends  ; and  this  was  to  happen  a 
long  time  later,  and  he  left  signs  of  when  it  would 
be.  In  consequence  of  the  great  disturbance  caused 
by  the  sight  of  these  ships,  the  King  was  very 
desirous  of  knowing  what  they  were  ; and  he  spoke 
to  his  diviners,  asking  them  to  tell  him  what  ships 
were  those  and  whence  they  came.  The  diviners 
conversed  with  their  devils,  and  told  him  that  the 
ships  belonged  to  a great  king,  and  came  from  very 
far,  and  according  to  what  they  found  written,  these 
were  the  people  who  were  to  seize  India  by  war  and 
peace,  as  they  had  already  told  him  many  times, 

1 “ Lendas  da  India,”  translated  by  the  Hon.  E.  J.  Stanley  for  the 
Hakluyt  Society.  - - 


1 6 EARLY  HISTORY  OF  INDIAN  COMMERCE. 

because  the  period  which  had  been  written  down 
was  concluded.” 

The  king  and  his  counsellors  were  so  assured  of 
the  truth  of  this  prophecy,  that  they  received  the 
Portuguese  with  great  honour  and  friendship,  pressing 
on  them  more  presents  and  goods  than  could  be 
stored  away  in  the  ships,  which  were  soon  able  to 
sail  away  with  ample  cargoes  of  pepper,  cinnamon, 
ginger,  cloves,  mace,  and  nutmegs. 

Such  was  the  commencement  of  the  modern 
history  of  commerce  between  the  East  and  the  West. 
Vasco  da  Gama  reached  Portugal  in  1499  to  the 
great  delight  of  the  king,  who  immediately  assumed 
the  title  of  “ Lord  of  the  Conquest,  Navigation,  and 
Commerce  of  P'thiopia,  Arabia,  Persia,  and  China,” 
a title  confirmed  in  1502  by  a Bull  from  Pope 
Alexander  VI. 

The  profits  of  the  voyage  being  found  to  be  sixty 
times  the  expenses  incurred,  King  Emmanuel  deter- 
mined to  send  to  the  East  “ another  large  fleet  of 
great  and  strong  ships  which  could  stow  much 
cargo,  and  which,  if  they  returned  in  safety,  would 
bring  him  untold  riches.” 

Vasco  da  Gama  never  forgave  the  Moors  for  their 
treatment  of  him  on  his  first  arrival  at  Calicut.  When 
he  visited  the  coast  again,  in  1 502,  he  captured  two 
ships  and  sixteen  small  vessels,  and  having  cut  off 
the  hands  and  ears  and  noses  of  eight  hundred 
unfortunate  Moors,  who  formed  the  crews,  he  broke 
their  teeth  with  staves,  placed  them  all  in  a small 
ship  which  he  set  on  fire  and  allowed  to  drift  ashore, 
so  that  the  Zamorin  might  judge  of  the  fierce  wrath 


ZAMORIN  OF  CALICUT. 


17 


of  the  Portuguese  sailors.  No  wonder  the  Portuguese 
historian  writes,  as  recorded  in  the  Introduction  to 
the  Hakluyt  Society’s  account  by  Correa,  “ The  con- 
quest of  India  is  repugnant  to  us,  and  strikes  us  with 
horror,  on  account  of  the  injustice  and  barbarity  of 
the  conquerors,  their  frauds,  extortions  and  san- 
guinary hatreds  ; whole  cities  ravaged  and  given  to 
the  flames  ; amid  the  glare  of  conflagrations  and  the 
horrid  lightning  of  artillery,  soldiers  converted  into 
executioners  after  victory.” 

The  native  princes  were  determined  not  to  sur- 
render without  one  final  struggle.  Against  Cochin, 
where  Duarte  Pacheco,  a Portuguese  captain,  had 
been  left  in  command  of  a little  over  one  hundred 
Portuguese  soldiers  and  three  hundred  Malabar  native 
troops,  the  Zamorin  of  Calicut  advanced  at  the  head 
of  an  immense  army  of  fifty  thousand  troops  and 
numerous  cannon,  aided  by  a sea-force  of  some  three 
hundred  ships. 

For  five  months  he  strove  to  drive  the  handful  of 
Portuguese  from  India.  Time  after  time  his  troops 
were  defeated,  ten  thousand  of  them  being  slain,  and 
all  his  ships  sunk  save  four.  He  at  length  retreated, 
finding  that  his  undisciplined  native  troops  could  not 
avail  against  European  soldiers,  and  Duarte  Pacheco 
was  left  victorious,  the  first  to  show'  to  the  West 
the  possibility  of  founding  an  empire  in  India,  and 
the  first  of  the  long  line  of  heroes  whose  services  to 
their  country  were  repaid  by  neglect  or  insult,  poverty 
or  death. 

Before  the  trade  from  the  East  finally  passed  to 
the  Atlantic  the  Portuguese  had  to  fight  one  more 

3 


KING  OK  KOCHIN. 

(From  Asfley’s  “Voyages  and  Travels.' 


DOM  LOU  REN  CO  DE  ALMEIDA.  1 9 

fight.  The  Sultan  of  Egypt,  seeing  that  the  course 
of  commerce,  through  his  dominions  to  the  Medi- 
terranean ports,  was  passing  to  the  new  route  round 
the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  resolved  to  gather  together 
a great  fleet  and  send  it  to  India  to  destroy  the 
Portuguese  ships  now  trading  at  Cochin,  Cannanore, 
and  Quilon.  Dom  Louren^o  de  Almeida,  aged 
eighteen,  son  of  Dom  Francisco  de  Almeida,  the  first 
great  Portuguese  Viceroy  of  India,  met  the  Egyptian 
and  an  allied  native  fleet  off  Chaul,  where,  after  two 
days’  fighting,  the  Portuguese  were  defeated  and 
forced  to  retreat. 

Dom  Lourenco’s  ship  was  surrounded,  and  he  him- 
self wounded.  Disdaining  to  yield,  he  fell  fighting 
amid  a brave  band  of  heroes,  as  told  in  Mickle’s 
well-known  translation  of  Camoens  : — 

“ Bound  to  the  mast  the  god-like  hero  stands, 

Waves  his  proud  sword  and  cheers  his  woeful  bands  ; 
Though  winds  and  seas  their  wonted  aid  deny, 

To  yield  he  knows  not,  but  he  knows  to  die.” 

With  fierce  wrath  the  Viceroy  hastened  to  avenge 
the  death  of  his  son.  He  ravaged  and  burned  the 
hostile  city  of  Dabhol,  scattered  the  Egyptian  and 
allied  native  fleet  of  two  hundred  ships,  plundering 
and  burning  them  all  with  the  exception  of  four,  and 
slaying  three  thousand  of  the  Moors,  thus  establishing 
the  supremacy  of  the  Portuguese  in  the  Eastern  seas. 
The  same  sad  fate,  allotted  to  so  many  who  strove 
to  knit  together  the  East  and  the  West,  followed  the 
footsteps  of  the  first  great  Viceroy  of  India.  De- 
prived, by  orders  from  home,  of  his  command,  he 


20  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  INDIAN  COMMERCE. 

departed  from  India  in  proud  anger  to  meet  with 
an  ignominious  death  in  a petty  fray  with  some 
Kaffir  savages  at  Saldanha  Bay  in  Africa — perhaps 
a happy  release  from  the  slow,  cankering  life  of 
neglect  and  contumely  meted  out  to  Pacheco,  La 
Bourdonnais,  Dupleix,  Lally,  Clive,  Hastings,  and 
many  others  who  lived  to  be  judged  by  their  fellow- 
countrymen,  whose  fight  they  had  fought  and  won. 

For  a century  the  Portuguese  held  the  “ Gorgeous 
East  in  fee,”  trading  unmolested  from  the  Cape  of 
Good  Hope  to  the  Red  Sea  and  the  Persian  Gulf,  to 
the  Spice  Islands  and  China,  their  possessions  along 
the  Atlantic,  in  Africa  and  Brazil,  filling  up  the  full 
measure  of  a mighty  empire  destined  to  fall  to  pieces 
and  sink  to  decay  when  the  trade  from  the  East 
passed  from  its  hands. 

Francisco  de  Almeida,  the  first  Viceroy,  saw  clearly 
that  Portugal  could  never  establish  a great  colonising 
empire  in  India,  that  territorial  possessions  would 
prove  too  heavy  a drain  on  her  population  and 
resources.  His  constant  admonition  to  King  Em- 
manuel was  that  the  trade  with  India  would  ulti- 
mately fall  to  the  nation  whose  forces  ruled  the 
seas. 

His  successors,  brave  and  wise  men  as  many  of 
them  were,  saw  but  the  immediate  present ; they 
possessed  not  the  divine  gift,  granted  but  to  few  of 
India’s  early  administrators,  such  as  Almeida,  Dupleix, 
Clive,  and  Hastings,  of  viewing  all  events  that 
passed  before  them  as  mere  phases  in  the  world’s 
history,  directed  and  moulded  by  the  irresistible 
principles  which  govern  the  destiny  of  nations,  and 


DUTCH  AND  ENGLISH. 


21 


not  as  springing  from  the  irresponsible  actions  of  men 
or  chance  decision  of  battles. 

Alfonso  de  Albuquerque,  the  next  Viceroy,  deemed 
that  by  the  prowess  and  valour  of  his  European 
soldiers  he  could  establish  a lasting  empire  for  his 
people  in  the  East.  In  1510  he  captured  Goa,  which 
soon  grew  to  be  the  wealthiest  and  most  powerful 
city  in  the  East ; he  reduced  Ormuz,  thus  closing  the 
Persian  Gulf  to  the  Arab  traders  ; he  built  a fortress 
at  Socotra  to  command  the  Red  Sea,  and  left  the 
coast  from  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  to  China  in 
the  hands  of  his  successors. 

Portugal  held  the  commerce  of  the  East,  sending 
its  goods  north  to  Bruges,  Antwerp,  Amsterdam, 
Nuremberg,  and  Augsburg,  until  she  became  united 
with  Spain  in  1580,  when  the  Dutch,  who,  under 
William  of  Orange,  had  in  1572  shaken  off  the 
Spanish  yoke,  could  no  longer  trade  with  Lisbon.  It 
was  then  that  the  Dutch,  determining  not  to  be  de- 
prived of  their  share  in  the  Eastern  trade,  sent  their 
navigators  to  the  north-east,  hoping  to  discover  some 
new  route  to  India  and  learn  something  of  its  com- 
merce. 

The  defeat  of  the  Spanish  Armada  in  1588  left  the 
seas  free  for  the  Dutch  and  English  to  sail  south 
round  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  and  take  part  in 
the  commerce  of  the  Eastern  world,  independent  of 
Portugal. 

In  1595  one  Jan  Huygen  van  Linschoten,  a West 
Friesland  burgher,  who  had  travelled  to  India  with 
the  Archbishop  of  Goa,  returned  home  after  thirteen 
years’  residence  in  the  East  and  published  a cele- 


22  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  INDIAN  COMMERCE. 

brated  book,  in  which  he  gave  a full  account  of  the 
route  to  India  as  well  as  of  the  commerce  carried  on 
there  by  the  Portuguese.  In  1595  the  Dutch  de- 
spatched four  ships  under  Cornelius  Houtman  to  sail 
round  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope ; in  1602  trading 
factories  were  set  up  in  Ceylon  and  along  the  west 
coast  of  India,  and  in  the  farther  East  from  Batavia 
in  Java  to  Japan  and  China. 

By  this  time  news  had  also  reached  England  of  the 
wealth  of  India.  Thomas  Stevens,  the  first  English- 
man who  ever  visited  India,  had  sailed  from  Lisbon 
to  Goa  in  1579  and  had  become  Rector  of  the  Jesuit 
College  at  Salsette.  From  there,  in  a series  of  letters 
written  to  his  father,  he  aroused  the  interest  of  the 
English  people  in  the  East  by  the  vivid  account  he 
gave  of  the  trade  of  the  Portuguese  and  the  fertility 
of  the  land. 

In  1583  three  English  merchants,  Ralph  Fitch, 
James  Newberry,  and  William  Leedes,  started  over- 
land for  India.  They  were  made  prisoners  by  the 
Portuguese  at  Ormuz,  to  the  despair  of  Newberry, 
who  wrote  : “ It  may  be  that  they  will  cut  our  throtes 
or  keepe  us  long  in  prison,  God’s  will  be  done.”  They 
were,  however,  spared,  and  sent  on  to  Goa  where 
they  saw  Thomas  Stevens  and  the  celebrated  Jan  van 
Linschoten.  Escaping,  after  many  adventures,  from 
Goa,  they  travelled  through  a great  part  of  India, 
giving  in  letters  home  an  interesting  account  of  the 
country  and  the  customs  of  the  people,  all  strange 
and  wonderful  to  these  first  English  travellers.  From 
Bijapur,  Fitch  writes  that  there  “ they  bee  great 
idolaters,  and  they  have  their  idols  standing  in  the 


EARLY  TRAVELLERS. 


23 


woods  which  they  call  Pagodes.  Some  bee  like  a 
Cowe,  some  like  a Monkie,  some  like  Bufifles,  some 
like  peacockes,  and  some  like  the  devill.”  Golconda 
is  described  as  “ a very  faire  towne,  pleasant,  with 
faire  houses  of  bricke  and  timber.”  Fitch  then  made 
his  way  to  Masulipatam,  on  the  east  coast,  “ whether 
come  many  shippes  out  of  India,  Pegu  and  Sumatra 
very  richly  laden  with  pepper,  spices  and  other 
commodities.”  Agra  is  described  as  “ a very  great 
citie  and  populous,  built  with  stone,  having  faire 
and  large  streetes.”  “ Fatepore  Sikri  and  Agra  are 
two  very  great  cities,  either  of  them  much  greater 
than  London  and  very  Populous.  Between  Agra  and 
Fatepore  are  twelve  miles  and  all  the  way  is  a market 
of  victualls  and  other  things  as  full  as  though  a man 
were  still  in  a towne.”  “ Hither,”  we  are  further  told, 
“ is  a great  resort  of  merchants  fiom  Persia  and  out 
of  India,  and  very  much  merchandise  of  silke  and 
clothe  and  of  precious  stones,  both  Rubies,  Diamants 
and  Pearles.” 

John  Newberry  departed  from  Agra  for  home, 
journeying  through  Persia ; William  Leedes  took 
service  as  jeweller  with  the  Emperor  Akbar,  and 
Ralph  Fitch  continued  his  travels,  proceeding  towards 
Bengal,  noting  the  power  and  influence  of  the  Brahman 
priests,  who,  he  says,  are  a kind  of  craftie  people 
worse  than  the  Jewes.”  The  myriad  temples,  the 
bathing  ghats,  and  sacred  wells  of  Benares  call  forth 
his  wonder,  but  one  custom  struck  him  with  more 
surprise  than  all  other  things  he  had  heard  of  or  seen 
in  the  course  of  his  travels — the  custom  of  widow- 
burning. “ Wives  here,”  he  writes,  “ doe  burne  with 


24  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  INDIAN  COMMERCE. 

their  husbands  when  they  die,  if  they  will  not,  their 
heads  be  shaven,  and  never  any  account  is  made  of 
them  afterward.”  Travelling  from  Benares  towards 
Patna  he  found  that  the  road  was  infested  with  bands 
of  robbers  ; nevertheless  he  managed  to  reach  Bhutan 
in  safety,  returning  to  “ Hugeli,  which  is  the  place 
where  the  Portugals  keepe  in  the  country  of  Bengala,” 
and  thence  sailing  for  home  he  arrived  at  Ceylon, 
where  the  king  was  very  powerful,  “ his  guard  are  a 
thousand  thousand  men,  and  often  he  commeth  to 
Columbo,  which  is  the  place  where  the  Portugals  have 
their  fort,  with  an  hundred  thousand  men  and  many 
elephants.  But  they  be  naked  people  all  of  them, 
yet  many  of  them  be  good  with  their  pieces  which  be 
muskets.” 

Fitch  reached  home  in  1591,  after  an  absence  of 
eight  years  from  his  native  country,  where,  in  the 
meantime,  more  certain  and  accurate  knowledge  of 
the  route  to  India  and  the  Portuguese  commerce  had 
been  gained. 

In  the  year  1587  a large  Portuguese  ship  named 
the  San  Filippe  had  been  captured  by  Sir  Francis 
Drake  off  the  Azores  on  its  way  from  Goa  to  Lisbon, 
and  amid  great  rejoicing  towed  into  Plymouth,  where 
its  papers  were  examined  and  its  cargo  of  Eastern 
produce  found  to  be  of  £108,049  value. 

A few  years  later  another  great  ship,  the  largest  in 
the  Portuguese  navy,  the  Madre  di  Dios,  was  also  cap- 
tured off  the  Azores  on  its  way  home  from  India, 
brought  into  Dartmouth,  and  her  cargo  of  jewels, 
spices,  nutmegs,  silks,  and  cottons  sold  for  £1 50,000  ; 
the  papers  found  in  her  giving  a full  account  of  the 


GEORGE  RAYMOND  AND  JAMES  LANCASTER.  25 


trade  and  settlements  of  the  Portuguese  in  the 
Eastern  seas. 

In  1591  three  ships,  the  Penelope,  the  Merchant 
Royal,  and  the  Edward  Bonadventure,  sailed  under 
command  of  George  Raymond  and  James  Lan- 
caster, on  the  first  voyage  to  India  from  England. 
By  the  time  they  reached  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope 
scurvy  had  so  weakened  the  sailors,  and  the  tem- 
pestuous seas  and  storms  so  damaged  the  ships,  that 
the  Merchant  Royal  had  to  be  sent  home  with  fifty  of 
the  crews.  Six  days  after,  on  “ the  14th  of  September, 
we  were  encountered,”  witnesses  James  Lancaster  in 
his  account  as  recorded  by  Hakluyt,  “ with  a mighty 
storme  and  extreeme  gusts  of  winde,  wherein  we  lost 
our  general’s  companie,  and  could  never  heare  of 
him  nor  his  ship  any  more.”  So  Lancaster  had  to 
sail  on,  the  Bonadventure  alone  being  left  out  of  the 
three  ships  to  encounter  more  sore  perils  and  trials, 
for  “ foure  dayes  after  this  uncomfortable  separation 
in  the  morning  toward  ten  of  the  clocke  we  had  a 
terrible  clap  of  thunder,  which  slew  foure  of  our  men 
outright,  their  necks  being  wrung  in  sonder  without 
speaking  any  word,  and  of  94  men  there  was  not  one 
untouched,  whereof  some  were  stricken  blind,  others 
were  bruised  in  the  legs  and  armes  and  others  in  their 
brests,  others  were  drawen  out  at  length  as  though 
they  had  been  racked.  But  (God  be  thanked)  they 
all  recovered  saving  only  the  foure  which  were  slaine 
out  right.” 

Lancaster  reached  India,  cruised  about  for  some 
time  in  the  Eastern  seas,  pillaging  such  Portuguese 
vessels  as  he  captured,  and  then  sailed  for  home,  passed 


26  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  INDIAN  COMMERCE. 


the  Cape,  reached  the  West  Indies  and  the  Bermudas, 
where  he  and  nearly  all  his  remaining  sailors  landed 
on  a desert  island,  “ but  in  the  night  time,  .about 
twelve  of  the  clocke,  our  ship  did  drive  away  with 
five  men  and  a boy  onely  in  it ; our  carpenter  secretly 
cut  their  own  cable,  leaving  nineteen  of  us  on  land 
without  boate  or  anything,  to  our  great  discomfort.” 

From  this  position  Lancaster  and  the  few  survivors 
of  the  ill-fated  expedition  were  rescued  by  a French 
ship,  and  arrived  at  Dieppe  on  the  24th  of  May,  1 594, 
having  “spent  in  this  voyage  three  yeeres,  five  weekes 
and  two  dayes,  which  the  Portugals  performe  in  halfe 
the  time.” 

In  1596  a second  effort  was  made  to  reach  India, 
Captain  Benjamin  Wood  sailing  in  charge  of  the 
Bear , the  Bears  Whelp , and  Benjamin , but  neither  he 
nor  his  ships  were  ever  heard  of  again. 

Renewed  and  more  vigorous  efforts  were  now 
necessary,  for  the  Dutch,  were  gradually  monopolising 
the  trade  with  the  East.  In  1599,  they  raised  the 
price  of  pepper  in  the  English  market  from  3s.  to  8s. 
per  pound,  and  the  Lord  Mayor  of  London  imme- 
diately called  together  a meeting  of  the  principal  City 
merchants  to  consider  what  course  should  be  pursued. 
On  the  22nd  of  September,  Sir  Stephen  Soame,  the 
Lord  Mayor,  sundry  aldermen,  and  others  of  less 
dignity,  such  as  grocers,  drapers,  vintners,  leather- 
sellers,  skinners,  and  haberdashers,  met  together  at 
Founders’  Hall,  Lothbury,  and  there  agreed — “ with 
their  owne  handes  to  venter  in  the  pretended  voiage 
to  the  Easte  Indies,  the  which  it  may  please  the  Lord 
to  prosper.” 


OLD  EAST  INDIA  HOUSE. 

( From  “Gentleman's  Magazine,"  1784.) 


II. 

RISE  OF  THE  HONOURABLE  EAST  INDIA  COMPANY. 

ONE  year  after  the  merchants  of  London  had  first 
assembled  together  they  received  the  announcement 
that  it  was  Her  Majesty’s  pleasure  “ that  they  should 
proceade  in  their  purpose,”  the  Lords  of  the  Council 


28 


RISE  OF  THE  EAST  INDIA  COMPANY. 


shortly  after  admonishing  them  “ that  you  should 
therein  use  all  expedicion  and  possible  speede  to 
advance  the  same,  knowing  that  otherwyse  you  may 
much  prejudice  yourselves  by  your  staggeringe  and 
delaies.” 

Four  ships,  the  Malice  Scourge , of  600  tons,  the 
Hector , of  300  tons,  the  Ascension , of  260,  the 
Susan , of  240,  and  a small  pinnace  were  accordingly 
purchased  and  made  ready  for  sailing  when  a diffi- 
culty arose.  The  Lord  Treasurer  strove  to  place  Sir 
Edward  Michelborne,  a Court  favourite,  in  charge  of 
the  expedition — a proposal  which  the  City  merchants 
objected  to,  giving  as  their  reason  that  “ they  purpose 
not  to  employ  anie  gent  in  any  place  of  charge  or 
comaundent  in  the  said  voiage,”  their  intention  being 
“to  sort  their  business  with  men  of  their  own  quality.” 
The  Malice  Scourge , rechristened  the  Red  Dragon , 
was  placed  in  charge  of  James  Lancaster,  with  a crew 
of  202  men,  Captain  John  Davis,  the  famous  North- 
West  navigator,  being  pilot  ; John  Middleton  was 
made  commander  of  the  Hector,  with  108  men  ; 
William  Brand  commander  of  the  Ascension,  with  82 
men  ; and  John  Hey  wood  commander  of  the  Susan, 
with  88  men;  the  Guest,  a small  vessel  of  130  tons, 
being  purchased  to  accompany  the  fleet  as  a 
victualler. 

On  the  31st  of  December,  1600,  the  merchants 
received  “ The  Charter  of  Incorporation  of  the  East 
India  Company  by  the  name  of  the  Governor  and 
Company  of  Merchants  of  London  trading  into  the 
East  Indies,”  with  power  to  export  ,£30,000  in  bullion 
out  of  the  country,  the  same  to  be  returned  at  the 


F/RST  VOYAGE. 


29 


end  of  the  voyage,  the  Charter  being  granted  for  a 
term  of  fifteen  years. 

On  the  2nd  of  April,  1601,  the  four  ships  started 
on  their  memorable  voyage,  having  on  board  the  sum 
of  £28,742  in  bullion,  and  £6,860  worth  of  British 
staples,  such  as  cutler}-,  glass,  and  hides,  wherewith 
they  hoped  to  open  up  a trade  in  the  Eastern  seas. 
This  laudable  enterprise  they  commenced,  after  the 
fashion  of  the  times,  by  capturing,  on  the  21st  of 
June,  a Portuguese  ship  bound  from  Lisbon  to  the 
East  Indies,  and  taking  from  her  146  butts  of  wine, 
much  oil  and  other  goods,  “ which  was  a great  helpe 
to  us  in  the  whole  voyage  after.”  By  the  time  the 
ships  reached  Saldanha  Bay,  now  known  as  Table 
Bay,  the  crews  of  three  of  the  ships  were  so  weakened 
by  scurvy,  from  which  disease  105  in  all  died,  that 
they  had  not  strength  left  even  to  let  go  their  anchors, 
the  crew  of  the  Dragon  alone  escaping,  as  they 
abstained  as  much  as  possible  from  eating  salt  meat 
and  drank  freely  of  lemon  juice.  James  Lancaster 
went  ashore  to  “ seeke  some  refreshing  for  our  sicke 
and  weake  men,  where  hee  met  with  certaine  of  the 
Countrey  people  and  gave  them  divers  trifles,  as 
knives  and  pieces  of  old  iron  and  such  like,  and  made 
signes  to  them  to  bring  him  downe  Sheepe  and  Oxen. 
For  he  spake  to  them  in  the  cattels  Language,  which 
was  never  changed  at  the  Confusion  of  Babell,  which 
was  Moath  for  oxen  and  kine,  and  Baa  for  Sheepe, 
which  language  the  people  understood  very  well 
without  any  interpreter.” 

Recovering  their  health  and  strength  they  sailed 
east  and  sighted  Sumatra  on  the  2nd  of  June,  1602, 


30 


RISE  OF  THE  EAST  INDIA  COMPANY. 


and  on  the  5th  of  June  anchored  off  Achin.  Here 
a treaty  of  peace  was  drawn  up  between  James 
Lancaster  and  the  King,  who  took  more  interest 
in  cock-fighting  than  in  listening  to  the  letters  from 
Queen  Elizabeth  to  “ her  loving  brother,  the  great 
and  mightie  King  of  Achem.”  Seeing  that  he  could 
obtain  but  small  store  of  goods  or  pepper,  on  account 
of  failure  in  the  previous  year’s  harvests,  “ the  generall 
daily  grew  full  of  thought  how  to  lade  his  shippes 
to  save  his  owne  credit,  the  merchants’  estimation 
that  set  him  aworke,  and  the  reputation  of  his 
countrey  : considering  what  a foule  blot  it  would 
be  to  them  all  in  regard  to  the  nations  about  us, 
seeing  there  were  enough  merchandise  to  be  bought 
in  the  Indies,  yet  he  should  be  likely  to  return 
home  with  empty  ships.”  Sailing  away  to  the 
Straits  of  Malacca  a Portuguese  ship  of  1,900  tons 
was  sighted,  on  the  3rd  of  October,  and,  as  told  in 
the  journals  of  the  voyage,  transcribed  in  “ Purchas 
his  Pilgrimes,”  published  in  1625,  “within  five  or  six 
daies  we  had  unladen  her  of  950  packes  of  Calicoes 
and  Pintados,  besides  many  packets  of  merchandise: 
she  had  in  her  much  rice  and  other  goods  whereof  we 
made  small  account.”  In  the  simple  narrative  we  are 
further  told  that  “ the  Generall  was  very  glad  of  this 
good  hap,  and  very  thankfull  to  God  for  it,  and  as  he 
told  me  he  was  much  bound  to  God  that  had  eased 
him  of  a very  heavy  care,  and  that  he  could  not  be 
thankfull  enough  to  Him  for  this  blessing  given  him. 
For,  saith  he,  He  hath  not  onely  supplied  my  neces- 
sities, to  lade  these  ships  I have;  but  hath  given  me 
as  much  as  will  lade  as  many  more  shippes  as  I have, 
if  I had  them  to  lade.” 


SECOND  VOYAGE. 


31 


Delighted  at  their  good  fortune  they  sailed  on  to 
Bantam,  in  Java,  where  “wee  traded  here  very  peace- 
ably, although  the  Javians  be  reckoned  among  the 
greatest  Pickers  and  Thieves  in  the  world.” 

The  ships  returned  to  England  in  the  summer  of 
1603,  the  Court  Minutes  of  the  Company  stating  that 
on  the  1 6th  of  June  of  that  year  the  Ascension 
appeared  in  the  river  with  a cargo  of  210,000  lbs.  of 
pepper,  1,100  lbs.  of  cloves,  6,030  lbs.  of  cinnamon, 
and  4,080  lbs.  of  gum  lacquer.  The  Lord  High 
Admiral  demanded  one-tenth  of  the  value  of  the 
prizes  taken  at  sea,  and  a further  sum  of  £917  had  to 
be  paid  for  Customs  dues  ; nevertheless,  the  voyage 
was  successful  enough  to  encourage  the  East  India 
Company  to  subscribe  together  a sum  of  ^60,450  for 
a second  expedition  which  sailed  in  1604  in  charge 
of  Henry  Middleton. 

Reaching  Bantam,  two  of  the  four  ships  which 
formed  the  fleet  were  laden  with  pepper  and  the 
other  two  sailed  on  to  Amboyna.  The  Portuguese 
and  Dutch  were  here  found  to  be  engaged  in  a 
fierce  war.  Each  was  determined  to  gain  the  mono- 
poly of  the  trade  in  the  Moluccas,  but  both  were 
equally  determined  to  combine  against  a new  com- 
petitor. Middleton,  finding  himself  unable  either  to 
open  up  factories,  or  enter  into  friendly  negotiations 
with  the  natives,  was  obliged  to  depart  with  his  ships 
unladen.  Although  one  of  the  ships  was  lost  at  sea, 
the  Company,  on  casting  up  their  accounts,  found 
they  had  made  a profit  of  95  per  cent,  on  the  entire 
capital  subscribed  for  their  two  first  ventures. 

This  lucrative  source  of  wealth  soon  brought  forth 


32 


RISE  OF  THE  EAST  INDIA  COMPANY. 


competitors  eager  to  share  in  its  profits.  In  1604 
James  I.,  in  direct  contravention  of  the  Company’s 
exclusive  right  of  trading  with  the  East,  gave  permis- 
sion to  Sir  Edward  Michelborne,  whom  the  London 
merchants  had  refused  to  place  in  charge  of  their 
first  expedition,  to  sail  on  a voyage  of  discovery  to 
China,  Japan,  Corea,  and  Cathay.  Starting  with 
the  Tiger , a ship  of  240  tons,  and  a small  pinnace, 
the  Tiger's  Whelp , Sir  Edward  Michelborne  sailed 
east,  where  he  captured  and  pillaged  some  Chinese 
vessels.  The  voyage  is  memorable  for  the  fact  that 
the  simple-souled  John  Davis,  the  North-West 
navigator,  who  accompanied  the  expedition,  was 
treacherously  slain  by  some  Japanese  pirates  whom 
he  allowed  to  come  on  board  his  ship  under  the 
belief  that  they  were  peaceable  traders  bringing  some 
useful  information. 

Notwithstanding  the  interference  of  these  private 
traders  or  “ interlopers  ” the  Company  continued  to 
send  their  ships  to  the  East.  In  1606  three  ships 
went  to  Bantam  for  pepper  and  to  Amboyna  for 
cloves  ; the  latter  sold  in  England  for  £36, 287,  the 
original  cost  being  £2, 947  1 5s.  The  two  ships  sent 
out  on  the  fourth  voyage  in  1607  were  lost,  neverthe- 
less the  Company  made  on  its  third  and  fifth  voyages 
a net  profit  of  234J  per  cent. 

By  degrees  trade  was  opened  up  at  Surat  and 
Cambay,  where  cloths  and  calicoes  were  purchased 
and  carried  to  Bantam  and  the  Moluccas  to  be  ex- 
changed for  the  more  valued  spices  and  pepper.  The 
Charter,  as  renewed  by  James  I.  in  1609,  granted  the 
Company  not  only  the  exclusive  right  in  perpetuity 


PORTUGUESE  OPPOSITION. 


33 


of  trading  to  the  East  Indies  but  also  the  right 
of  holding  and  alienating  land — concessions  which 
inspired  so  much  confidence  that  the  subscriptions 
for  the  sixth  voyage  reached  the  sum  of  £82,000. 
The  sixth  voyage  is  memorable  for  the  fact  that  the 
largest  merchant  ship  then  in  England,  the  Trades 
Increase , of  1,100  tons,  was  sent  out  to  the  East. 

The  Portuguese  made  strenuous  efforts  to  pre- 
vent the  adventurers  trading  at  Surat,  whereon  the 
English  commander,  Sir  Henry  Middleton,  captured 
one  of  their  ships  laden  with  Indian  goods,  so  that 
the  profits  of  the  voyage  amounted  to  £121  13s.  4d. 
per  cent.  The  Trades  Increase , however,  struck  on 
a rock  and  subsequently  capsized — a calamity  which 
so  affected  Sir  Henry  Middleton  that  he  died  of  grief. 

The  power  and  trade  of  the  Portuguese  had 
rapidly  waned  from  1580,  when  they  were  united 
with  Spain  under  Philip  II.;  but  in  the  East  they 
still  strove  to  hold  their  once  opulent  settlements. 
In  1612  four  Portuguese  galleons  and  twenty-five 
frigates  attacked  the  English  fleet  under  Captain 
Best  at  Swally,  off  Surat,  and  were  driven  off  with 
heavy  loss.  In  1615  they  made  one  final  effort  to 
drive  from  the  vicinity  of  Goa  and  Surat  the  English, 
whom  they  describe  in  a letter  to  the  King  as  “thieves, 
disturbers  of  States,  and  a people  not  to  be  permitted 
in  a commonwealth.”  Eight  galleons,  three  lesser 
ships,  and  sixty  frigates  came  up  with  the  New 
Year's  Gift,  the  Hector,  the  Merchant's  Hope,  and  the 
Solomon,  off  Swally,  the  natives  anxiously  looking  on 
to  see  the  contest  between  the  two  great  European 
powers.  Three  of  the  Portuguese  ships  drew  alongside 

4 


34 


RISE  OF  THE  EAST  INDIA  COMPANY. 


the  Merchant' s Hope , which  was  boarded,  but  after  an 
obstinate  fight  they  were  driven  off  with  a loss  of 
some  five  hundred  men,  the  three  ships  set  on  fire  and 
allowed  to  drift  ashore,  the  rest  of  the  fleet  retreating 
during  the  night  after  a severe  cannonade. 

For  many  reasons  it  was  impossible  that  Portugal 
could  ever  have  established  a permanent  empire  in 
India.  The  union  with  Spain,  the  smallness  of  her 
population,  the  deterioration  of  her  soldiers  from 
habits  of  pampered  luxury  and  intermarriage  with 
native  women,  added  to  their  heavy  losses  in  war,  are 
facts  lying  on  the  surface.  Recent  researches  have 
brought  to  light  graver  reasons  why  the  native  powers 
themselves  were  nothing  loth  to  be  relieved  from  the 
contamination  of  a so-called  civilisation  introduced 
by  foreigners  who  had  lived  amongst  them  and  grown 
wealthy  for  a period  of  over  one  hundred  years.  The 
Portuguese  historians  tell  how  the  tomb  of  the  great 
Portuguese  Viceroy,  Don  Francisco  de  Almeida, 
was,  for  man)7  years  after  his  death,  visited  both  by 
Muhammadans  and  Hindus,  who  prayed  that  he 
might  rise  up  and  defend  them  from  the  barbarities, 
cruelties,  and  greed  of  his  successors.  From  i 560  the 
tortures  and  the  burnings  at  the  stake  of  supposed 
witches,  sorcerers,  and  Christians  suspected  of  heresy, 
native  and  European  alike,  not  only  made  every  per- 
son within  its  jurisdiction  fearful  for  his  honour,  life, 
and  liberty,  but  also  sent  a shudder  of  horror  through 
Europe  when  the  full  tale  of  its  iniquities  was  made 
known.  The  whole  history  is  summed  up  by  the 
Portuguese  editor  of  Correa’s  history  : “Perfidy  pre- 
siding over  almost  all  compacts  and  negotiations  . . , 


PORTUGUESE  LOSSES. 


35 


conversions  to  Christianity  serving  as  a transparent 
veil  to  covetousness : these  are  the  fearful  pictures 
from  which  we  would  desire  to  turn  away  our  eyes. 

. . . It  was,  therefore,  to  this  moral  leprosy,  to  these 
internal  cankers,  that  Gaspar  Correa  chiefly  alluded, 
and  to  which  Diogo  do  Conto  attributed  the  loss  of 
India,  saying  that  it  had  been  won  with  much  truth, 
fidelity,  valour,  and  perseverance,  and  that  it  was  lost 
through  the  absence  of  those  virtues.”  1 

From  their  settlements  and  fortresses  in  the  Eastern 
seas  the  Portuguese  were  rapidly  driven  out  by  the 
English  and  Dutch.  In  1622  Ormuz,  at  the  entrance 
of  the  Persian  Gulf,  was  captured  by  the  English  fleet, 
assisted  by  a Persian  army  under  Shah  Abbas,  the 
Portuguese  population  of  over  two  thousand  souls 
being  transported  to  Muscat.  The  prize-money  due 
to  the  Company  from  this  conquest  was  estimated  at 
£100,000  and  240,000  rials  of  eight,  of  which  James  I. 
claimed  £10,000,  his  share  as  King,  and  the  Duke 
of  Buckingham  £10,000,  his  share  as  Lord  High 
Admiral,  the  Company  not  being  permitted  to  send 
any  ships  from  England  until  they  consented  to  pay 
these  amounts. 

A few  years  later,  in  1629,  the  Emperor  Shah 
Jahan  captured  the  Portuguese  settlement  at  Hugh, 
carried  off  some  four  thousand  men,  women,  and 
children,  slew  over  one  thousand  of  the  garrison,  and 
took  three  hundred  ships  of  the  fleet.  P'rom  all  sides 
disaster  soon  followed.  Goa  was  blockaded  by  the 
Dutch,  who  gradually  gained  entire  control  over  the 

1 “ Lend  as  da  India,"  tr.  hv  the  Hon.  E.  J.  Stanley  ; Introduction, 


36  RISE  OF  THE  EAST  INDIA  COMPANY. 

trade  in  the  Spice  Islands,  Java,  Ceylon,  and  on  the 
mainland,  leaving  Portugal  by  the  middle  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  stripped  of  her  wealth  and  deprived 
of  her  commerce. 

As  the  trade  in  the  East  gradually  fell  from  the 
hands  of  the  effete  and  degenerate  descendants  of  the 
early  Portuguese  adventurers  the  struggle  commenced 
between  the  Dutch  and  English,  each  eager  to  seize 
this  source  of  wealth,  the  true  value  of  which  was 
yearly  becoming  more  apparent.  In  the  nine  voyages 
made  by  the  Company  up  to  1612,  the  average  profit 
on  each  share  held  by  the  London  merchants  had 
been  171  percent.  From  1613  to  1616  four  voyages 
were  made,  the  subscriptions  being  united  as  an  in- 
vestment for  the  joint  benefit  of  all  the  proprietors. 
Owing  to  the  opposition  shown  by  the  Dutch  to  the 
English  trade  in  the  Spice  Islands  the  profits  made 
on  each  of  these  four  voyages  fell  to  £89  10s.  per 
share  of  ;£lOO.  In  spite  of  this  the  subscriptions 
increased  to  .£1.600.000,  subsequently  expended  in 
three  voyages  on  a second  joint  stock  account. 

In  1621  the  subject  of  the  Eastern  trade  excited  so 
much  controversy  in  England  that  Thomas  Xun 
issued  his  celebrated  tract  as  a counterblast  to  the 
growing  contention  that  “ it  were  a happier  thing  for 
Christendom  (say  many  men)  that  the  navigation  of 
the  East  Indies,  by  way  of  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope, 
had  never  been  found  out.”  He  pleaded  that,  as  a 
result  of  the  discovery  of  the  route  to  India  by  the 
Cape,  “ the  Kingdom  is  purged  of  desperate  and 
unruly  people  who,  kept  in  awe  by  the  good  discipline 
at  sea,  doe  often  change  their  former  course  of  life 


THOMAS  NUN'S  TRACT. 


37 


and  so  advance  their  fortunes.”  He  then  asserts  that 
the  new  trade  with  the  East  “ is  a means  to  bring 
more  treasure  into  the  Realme  than  all  the  other 
trades  of  the  Kingdome  (as  they  are  now  managed) 
being  put  together.” 

Respecting  the  ships  which  had  been  employed  in 
the  Eastern  seas  he  gave  the  following  succinct  infor- 
mation : “ Since  the  beginning  of  the  trade  until  the 
month  of  July  last,  anno  1620,  there  have  been  sent 
thither  79  ships  in  several  voyages,  whereof  34  are 
alreadie  come  home  in  safetie  richly  laden,  foure  have 
been  worne  out  by  long  service  from  port  to  port  in 
the  Indies,  two  were  overwhelmed  in  the  trimming 
thereof,  six  have  been  cast  away  by  the  perils  of  the 
Sea,  twelve  have  been  taken  and  surprized  by  the 
Dutch,  whereof  divers  will  be  wasted  and  little  worth 
before  they  be  restored,  and  21  good  ships  doe  still 
remayne  in  the  Indies.” 

The  profit  made  by  the  voyages  is  summed  up  as 
follows:  “ First  there  hath  been  lost  £31,079  in  the 
six  shippes  which  are  cast  away,  and  in  the  34 
shippes  which  are  returned  in  safety  there  have  been 
brought  home  £356,288  in  divers  sorts  of  wares  which 
hath  produced  here  in  England  towards  the  general 
stock  thereof  £1,914,000.  ...  So  there  ought  to  re- 
main in  the  Indies  to  be  speedily  returned  hither 
£484,088.”  Elsewhere  he  shows  in  detail  how 
pepper,  mace,  nutmegs,  indigo,  and  raw  silk,  which 
would  have  cost  £1,465,000  if  purchased  at  the  old 
rates,  could  now  be  purchased  in  the  East  Indies  for 
about  £51 1,458. 

The  opposition  of  the  Dutch  to  English  enterprise 


38  RISE  OF  THE  EAST  INDIA  COMPANY. 

in  the  East  yearly  became  more  openly  aggressive 
until  finally,  in  1623,  the  Massacre  of  Amboyna  sowed 
the  seeds  of  that  bitter  animosity  which  sprang  up 
between  the  two  nations,  leading  to  a long  series  of 
conflicts  for  the  supremacy  of  the  seas. 

At  Amboyna,  in  the  Moluccas,  Captain  Towerson 
and  his  English  factors,  eighteen  in  number,  occupied 
a house  in  the  town,  the  Dutch  holding  a strong  fort 
garrisoned  by  two  hundred  of  their  soldiers.  Suddenly 
Captain  Towerson  and  his  assistants  were  seized  on 
a charge  of  conspiring  to  surprise  the  Dutch  strong- 
hold. It  was  in  vain  that  the  prisoners  protested  their 
innocence  ; the  torture  of  the  rack,  according  to  the 
barbarous  custom  of  the  day,  was  applied  until  they 
were  forced,  in  their  agony,  to  admit  the  truth  of  the 
accusation.  Captain  Towerson,  nine  English  sailors, 
nine  natives  of  Japan,  and  one  Portuguese  were  be- 
headed, praying  forgiveness  from  each  other  for  having 
in  their  torment  confessed  to  the  false  accusation. 
The  indignation  excited  in  England  on  receipt  of 
news  of  this  outrage  was  carefully  heightened  by  the 
Directors  of  the  East  India  Company  who  widely 
distributed  a picture  depicting,  in  all  the  exaggerated 
extravagance  capable  of  being  conjured  up  by  the 
imagination  of  the  time,  the  tortures  inflicted  on  the 
English  factors,  coupled  with  the  statement  that  the 
Dutch  had  sued  the  London  Company  for  the  ex- 
penses of  a black  pall  wherewith  the  body  of  Captain 
Towerson  had  been  covered. 

The  oppressions  of  the  Dutch,  however,  continued, 
the  English  trade  gradually  decreasing  until  by 
1628-9  the  Company  had  incurred  debts  to  the 


GABRIEL  BOUGHTON. 


39 


amount  of  ,£300,000,  shares  of  £100  falling  down  to 
£80,  although  previously  shares  of  £60  had  been  sold 
“ by  the  candle  ” for  as  much  as  £130. 

To  add  to  the  depression  permission  was  given,  in 
1635,  to  a rival  Company  under  Sir  William  Courten 
to  trade  with  the  East.  In  1640  the  King,  as  usual  in 
grievous  want  of  money,  forced  the  old  Company  to 
sell  him  on  credit  all  the  pepper  they  had  in  store  for 
the  sum  of  £63,283  ils.  id.,  which  the  King  imme- 
diately sold  for  £50,626  17s.  id.,  ready  cash  ; it  does 
not  appear  that  the  Company  ever  received  an)'  com- 
pensation, beyond  some  £13,000  owing  for  Custom 
dues. 

The  Company,  driven  by  the  Dutch  from  the 
Eastern  Archipelago  gradually  commenced  to  estab- 
lish factories  and  settlements  along  the  coast  of  India. 
In  1632  a factory  was  reopened  at  Masulipatam  under 
an  order  known  as  the  “ Golden  Firman,”  obtained 
from  the  Muhammadan  King  of  Golconda.  This 
settlement  soon  became  the  chief  place  of  trade  in 
India,  its  affairs  being  regulated  by  a Council.  The 
Chief  of  the  Council,  Mr.  Francis  Day,  made  a visit  to 
the  Portuguese  settlement  at  St.  Thome,  the  supposed 
place  of  martyrdom  of  St.  Thomas  the  Apostle,  and 
founded  there  in  1640  a new  factory  and  centre  of 
trade  known  as  Madras  town.  A more  important 
concession  was  obtained  in  1636  by  Mr.  Gabriel 
Boughton,  surgeon  of  the  Hopewell.  He  was  sum- 
moned to  attend  the  Emperor’s  daughter  who,  through 
her  clothes  catching  fire,  had  been  badly  burned.  De- 
lighted with  the  rapid  recovery  of  his  daughter,  under 
the  hands  of  the  skilful  English  surgeon,  the  Emperor 


4° 


RISE  OF  THE  EAST  INDIA  COMPANY. 


Shah  Jahan,  at  Mr.  Boughton’s  request,  granted  the 
Company  permission  to  establish  a factory  at  Hugh  and 
to  make  a settlement  lower  down  the  coast  at  Balasor 
where  a fort  was  built  which  soon  became  the  strong- 
est position  held  by  the  Company  on  the  east  coast. 

Bombay,  given  by  the  Portuguese  to  Charles  II. 
on  his  marriage  with  Catherine  of  Braganza,  as  part 
of  her  dower,  was  leased  by  the  King  in  1669  to  the 
Company  on  a rent  of  £10  per  annum — a possession 
which  from  1685  grew  to  be  the  chief  port  of  trade  on 
the  west  coast. 

While  the  London  merchants  were  thus  establish- 
ing centres  of  trade  abroad,  efforts  were  being  made 
by  the  home  Government  to  undermine  the  growing 
enterprise  of  the  Dutch  who,  in  1622-3,  had  founded 
New  Amsterdam,  now  New  York,  in  America,  and  in 
1650  commenced  the  colonisation  of  the  Cape  of 
Good  Hope.  By  the  Navigation  Act,  passed  in  1651, 
Cromwell  not  only  prepared  the  way  for  the  future 
extension  of  English  shipping  and  commerce,  but 
struck  a decisive  blow  at  the  prosperity  of  the  Dutch, 
then  the  carriers  of  the  world’s  sea-borne  trade.  By 
this  Act  no  goods  from  the  East,  from  Africa  or  from 
America,  were  allowed  to  be  imported  into  Great 
Britain  unless  carried  in  ships  belonging  to  England 
and  her  colonies. 

In  the  war  which  ensued  the  Dutch  had  much  to 
lose  ; attacks  could  be  made  on  their  rich  merchant 
ships  and  their  supplies  cut  off.  England,  on  the 
other  hand,  had  but  little  carrying  trade  to  defend 
and  was  secure  in  her  own  agricultural  resources.  The 
Dutch  flee  , under  Martin  Tromp,  was  defeated  by 


DUTCH  AND  FRENCH. 


41 


Blake  off  Dover  in  1652 — a defeat  retrieved  by  the 
end  of  the  year  when  Tromp  won  a decisive  victory, 
afterwards  sailing  down  the  Channel  with  a broom 
flying  at  his  masthead  to  show  that  he  had  swept 
the  English  from  the  seas.  In  March,  1653,  Blake 
and  Monk  defeated  Tromp  and  De  Ruyter  in  the  three 
days’  fight  off  Beachy  Head.  In  August  Tromp  was 
killed  in  the  engagement  off  the  Texel  peace  being 
afterwards  concluded  between  the  rival  powers,  neither 
able  to  gain  much  advantage  by  continuing  the 
conflict. 

France  was  now  commencing  her  struggle  for 
participation  in  the  commerce  of  the  world.  As 
early  as  1604  French  companies  had  been  formed 
and  ships  sent  out  to  the  East,  but  no  serious  efforts 
had  been  made  to  interfere  with  the  Dutch  and 
English.  It  was  not  until  the  year  1664  that  Colbert, 
successor  to  the  great  finance  Minister  Mazarin,  suc- 
ceeded in  arousing  the  interest  of  Louis  XIV.  in 
a scheme  for  enriching  France  by  a fostering  of  her 
resources  and  development  of  her  commerce.  The 
exclusive  right  of  trading  to  the  East  was  granted 
to  a powerful  Company,  formed  with  a capital  of 
fifteen  million  francs,  while  as  a basis  for  naval 
operations  in  the  narrow  seas,  Louis  XIV.,  in  1662, 
purchased  from  Charles  II.  the  fortress  of  Dunkirk 
taken  by  England  in  1658  from  the  Spanish  Nether- 
lands. 

In  1664  France  laid  claim  to  the  whole  of  the 
Spanish  Netherlands — a claim  which,  if  enforced, 
would  have  enabled  her  to  open  up  the  Scheldt  to 
navigation  and  divert  the  commerce  from  the  Dutch 


42 


RISE  OF  THE  EAST  INDIA  COMPANY. 


at  Amsterdam  to  Antwerp,  whence  the  trade  had 
drifted  after  its  sack  in  I 576  by  the  Spaniards.  The 
whole  history  of  the  next  fifty  years  centres  round 
this  policy  of  Louis  XIV.,  which  by  its  failure  left 
the  trade  to  the  East  and  the  supremacy  of  the  seas 
in  the  undisputed  possession  of  England. 

At  first  France  met  with  a short  but  brilliant  suc- 
cess, typical  of  all  her  subsequent  enterprises  to  gain 
an  Eastern  Empire.  Colbert  fixed  on  an  adventurer, 
Francois  Caron,  formerly  cook  and  chief  steward  on  a 
Dutch  man-of-war,  who  by  his  erratic  versatility  had 
risen  to  be  Member  of  Council  of  the  Dutch  settle- 
ment at  Batavia,  to  inaugurate  the  new  policy,  and 
despatched  him  to  India,  in  1667,  as  Director-General 
of  French  commerce.  Caron  succeeded  in  establish- 
ing factories  at  Surat  and  Masulipatam,  earning  for 
himself  the  order  of  St.  Michel  from  Louis  XIV.  as 
a reward  for  the  rich  cargoes  he  sent  home.  Em- 
boldened by  his  success  he  seized  the  Dutch  settle- 
ment at  Trinkamali  in  Ceylon,  and  took  St.  Thome 
from  the  Portuguese,  only  to  find  his  adventurous 
career  cut  short  by  his  recall  on  the  news  reaching 
Colbert  that  the  Dutch  had  recaptured  Trinkamali 
and  ignominiously  driven  the  French  out  of  Ceylon. 
Caron,  on  his  way  home,  heard  that  his  failure  had 
sealed  his  fate ; in  endeavouring  to  escape,  the  ship  in 
which  he  sailed  foundered  and  he  was  drowned,  thus 
escaping  the  ignominious  fate  of  his  successors  La 
Bourdonnais  and  Dupleix  who  strove  with  all  the 
power  of  their  imaginative  genius  to  accomplish  a 
task  foredoomed  to  failure — the  foundation  of  French 
supremacy  in  India.  It  was  not  in  the  East  but  in 


WAR  WITH  HOLLAND. 


43 


Europe  that  the  real  struggle  took  place  between  the 
Western  nations  for  maritime  supremacy  on  which 
command  over  the  destinies  of  India  could  alone  be 
based. 

In  England  the  policy  of  weakening  the  commercial 
prosperity  of  the  Dutch  continued  incessantly  with  a 
fixedness  of  purpose  which  seemed  inevitably  to  work 
towards  its  result,  success.  Charles  II.  continued  the 
commercial  policy  of  Cromwell,  enacting  by  his  Navi- 
gation Act,  which  ruled  the  importation  of  goods  into 
England  down  to  1 849,  that  no  goods  of  T urkey  or 
Russia  should  be  carried  into  England  unless  borne 
by  British  ships,  while  a long  list  of  scheduled  goods 
were  absolutely  forbidden,  under  any  conditions,  to 
be  imported  from  Germany,  Holland,  or  the  Nether- 
lands. 

The  commercial  rivalries  soon  led  to  open  hostilities, 
culminating,  early  in  1665,  in  a declaration  of  war 
between  England  and  Holland.  The  English  fleet 
beat  the  Dutch  off  Lowestoft,  only  to  meet  with  a 
disastrous  reverse  in  the  famous  four  days’  fight  off 
Dover — a reverse  retrieved  by  the  defeat  of  the 
Dutch  off  the  North  Forelands  and  the  burning  of  the 
Dutch  ships  in  their  harbours.  Content  with  this  suc- 
cess Charles  II.  neglected  his  navy,  allowing  many  of 
his  best  ships  to  be  paid  off.  The  day  of  awakening, 
however,  came  when  De  Ruyter  appeared  at  Graves- 
end and  in  the  Medway,  burned  the  English  ships  at 
Chatham  and  seized  Sheerness. 

The  Plague  and  the  Great  Fire  had  already  broken 
the  spirit  of  the  English  nation  ; the  fires  from  the 
burning  ships  in  the  river  completed  the  disasters. 


44 


E/SE  OF  THE  EAST  IXD/A  COMPANY . 


Peace  was  restored  by  the  Treaty-  of  Breda  in  1667, 
England  gaining  New  York  and  New  Jersey,  the 
Dutch  once  more  consenting  to  salute  the  English 
flag  on  the  high  seas. 

Holland  too  was  glad  to  be  at  peace.  Not  only  was 
her  maritime  power  threatened  but  her  very  existence 
as  a nation  was  at  stake.  Louis  XIV.  had  finally 
rejected  the  statesmanlike  policy  of  Colbert — a policy 
pressed  on  him  by  Leibnitz  who,  with  prophetic 
insight,  pointed  out  how  the  trade  from  the  East 
would  be  held  by  the  nation  wise  enough  to  com- 
mand the  immediate  and  ancient  route  by  way  of 
the  Persian  Gulf  and  Red  Sea — a route  England 
is  obliged  to  hold  to-day  in  order  to  safeguard  her 
own  commercial  supremacy.  “ The  possession  of 
Egypt,”  wrote  Leibnitz,  “ opens  the  way  to  con- 
quests worthy  of  Alexander  ; the  extreme  weakness 
of  the  Orientals  is  no  longer  a secret.  Whoever  has 
Egypt  will  have  all  the  coasts  and  islands  of  the 
Indian  Ocean.  It  is  in  Egypt  that  Holland  will  be 
conquered  ; it  is  there  she  will  be  despoiled  of  what 
alone  renders  her  prosperous,  the  Treasures  of  the 
East.” 

Louis  XIV.  thought  otherwise.  He  longed  for  the 
territorial  expansion  of  his  dominions  in  Europe.  He 
seized  Franche  Comte  and  parts — now  Belgium — of 
the  Spanish  Netherlands.  In  1670  he  induced  Charles 
II.  to  enter  into  the  Secret  Treaty  of  Dover  so  that 
both  nations  might  unite  to  crush  Holland,  whose 
people  were  detested  by  the  English  King,  and  whose 
commercial  prosperity  he  would  gladly  see  destroyed. 
The  Dutch,  under  De  Ruvter,  showed  in  Southwold 


WAR  WITH  FRANCE. 


45 


Bay  that  they  could  successfully  resist  the  allied 
fleets,  while  on  land  William  of  Orange,  afterwards 
William  III.  of  England,  accepted  as  Stadholder  on 
the  murder  of  the  De  Witt  brothers  at  the  Hague 
in  1672,  successfully  held  Amsterdam  by  cutting  the 
dykes  and  inundating  South  Holland.  Louis  had  to 
retire  baffled.  In  the  next  year  Charles  II.,  after  the 
brilliant  though  indecisive  attack  made  off  the  Texel 
by  the  Dutch  fleet  under  Prince  Rupert,  was  forced 
to  make  peace  and  withdraw  his  alliance  from  the 
French. 

Holland,  in  her  efforts  to  preserve  her  independence, 
had  been  obliged  to  neglect  her  Eastern  possessions 
and  turn  her  attention  from  the  increase  of  her  navy 
and  shipping  to  the  strengthening  of  her  army  and 
land  defences,  while  at  the  same  time  she  was  gradu- 
ally becoming  more  and  more  involved  in  debt. 

By  the  Treaty  of  Augsburg,  in  1686,  Holland  had 
to  join  Sweden  and  Savoy  in  again  opposing  the  over- 
weening ambition  of  Louis  XIV. — an  alliance  joined 
by  England  in  1689,  the  year  after  William  of  Orange 
had  landed  at  Torbay,  driven  out  James  II.  and 
accepted  the  throne  in  hopes  of  seeing  his  lifelong 
ambition  crowned  by  the  crushing  of  his  great  rival, 
the  French  monarch.  At  Beachy  Head  Admiral 
Tourville  succeeded  in  defeating  the  combined 
Dutch  and  English  fleets  in  1690,  but  two  years  later 
the  crowning  victory  of  Admiral  Russell  off  Cape  La 
Hogue  again  established  the  naval  supremacy  of 
England.  By  the  Treaty  of  Ryswick,  in  1697,  Louis 
XIV.  was  forced  to  surrender  all  his  conquests  in  the 
Netherlands  and  beyond  the  Rhine,  receiving  back 


4 6 RISE  OF  THE  EAST  INDIA  COMPANY 

the  French  settlement  at  Pondicherry  on  the  east 
coast  of  India  which  had  been  captured  by  the  Dutch. 

Although  England  was  thus  gradually  freed  from 
all  fear  of  Holland  as  a commercial  rival  in  the 
East,  France  still  struggled  for  mastery.  Louis 
XIV.,  aiming  at  universal  dominion,  sought,  in  1700, 
on  the  death  of  Charles  II.,  the  Spanish  King, 
whose  sister  he  had  married,  to  unite  in  his  own 
person  the  thrones  of  France  and  Spain.  Against 
his  pretensions  Holland,  Austria,  and  England  com- 
bined. The  French  fleet  was  defeated  in  Vigo  Bay; 
Gibraltar  was  taken  by  Rorke ; the  victories  of 
Blenheim,  Ramillies,  Oudenarde,  and  Malplaquet 
followed,  leaving  Louis  humbled  and  helpless,  glad 
in  1713  to  sign  the  Peace  of  Utrecht,  by  which  the 
defences  of  Dunkirk  were  to  be  razed  to  the  ground, 
Nova  Scotia  and  Newfoundland  ceded  to  England, 
and  Holland,  now  no  longer  a naval  power  to  be 
feared,  left  in  safe  possession  of  her  Spanish  Nether- 
lands. 

England  remained  the  supreme  maritime  power  to 
pursue  her  career  and  gain,  without  chance  of  failure, 
the  monopoly  of  the  commerce  of  the  East.  Holland 
was  crippled  ; the  subsequent  efforts  made  by  France 
are  merely  interesting  as  historical  facts,  for  without  a 
command  of  the  seas  she  was  powerless  to  compete 
with  England  in  the  East.  In  India  itself  the  Com- 
pany had  but  little  to  fear.  The  Mughal  Empire  was 
falling  to  pieces,  the  people  separated  from  each  other 
by  differences  of  race,  religion,  language,  customs,  and 
local  tradition,  lacked  the  essential  elements  where- 
with to  combine  in  a national  sentiment  of  opposition 


THE  UNITED  COMPANY. 


47 


to  the  invasion  of  a foreign  power  whose  resources 
and  strength  were  secured  on  the  seas. 

In  1693  the  Old  English  Company  had  lost  its 
Charter,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  it  had  ex- 
pended £90,000  in  efforts  to  bribe  the  Privy  Council, 
for  a new  Company,  known  as  the  London  Company, 
had  lent  the  Government  two  millions  sterling  at  8 per 
cent.,  and  in  return  had  been  granted  the  exclusive 
right  of  trading  to  the  East.  In  1702  a compro- 
mise was  effected  by  the  exertions  of  Godolphin, 
the  two  Companies  being  amalgamated  under  the 
title  of  the  Lmited  Company  of  Merchants  trading 
to  the  East  Indies — a Company  better  known  as  “The 
Honourable  East  India  Company,”  under  whose  rule 
the  British  Empire  was  established  in  India  and 
maintained  down  to  the  Mutiny  when  the  Crown 
assumed  direct  control. 


III. 

INDIA  ON  THE  EVE  OF  CONQUEST. 

In  India  the  reign  of  Aurangzib  the  Great  Mughal 
had  come  to  a close  in  1707,  the  dying  Emperor  in 
his  last  hours  pouring  forth  his  lamentations  over  the 
ruin  overshadowing  the  empire  founded  by  his  fore- 
fathers. “ I have  not  done  well  by  the  country  or 
its  people,”  he  cried,  in  despair,  “ the  army  is  con- 
founded, and  without  heart  or  help  even  as  I am.” 

Into  India  the  Mughal  Emperors  had  come  as 
foreigners.  Two  hundred  years  before  the  death 
of  Aurangzib,  at  the  time  when  Dom  Francisco  de 
Almeida,  the  first  Portuguese  Viceroy,  reached  India 
with  twenty-two  ships  and  1,500  soldiers,  Babar  the 
Lion,  the  Chagatai  Tartar,  sixth  in  descent  from  Timur 
or  Tamerlane  at  the  head  of  his  northern  barbarians 
had  descended  through  the  passes  of  Afghanistan 
to  found  the  Mughal  Empire.  Through  the  same 
passes  from  time  immemorial  warlike  races  had  swept 
down  on  the  sun-steeped  plains  of  the  Five  Rivers 
and  rich  alluvial  tracts  of  the  Ganges  and  Jumna 
to  conquer  the  effete  dwellers  therein  and  subdue 

48 


EARLY  INVASIONS. 


49 


them  to  their  will.  In  India  history  repeats  itself 
with  monotonous  sameness.  In  its  enervating  plains, 
far  removed  from  the  invigorating  sea-breeze  and  the 
bracing  cold  of  the  mountain  ranges,  the  keen  eye, 
undaunted  heart,  and  relentless  arm  of  the  successive 
hardy  northern  immigrants  slowly  but  surely  tend  to 
change  to  the  placid  look,  folded  hands  and  brooding 
mind  of  the  Eastern  Sage,  who,  content  to  dream 
his  dream  of  life,  wearily  turns  from  the  conflict  and 
dire  struggle  for  existence,  time  after  time  introduced 
by  the  more  warlike  northern  conquerors  ever  coming 
and  going  like  the  monsoon  storms. 

Who  the  first  inhabitants  of  India  were  we  know 
not.  In  primeval  days,  wild,  savage  people  inhabited 
the  land,  wandering  to  and  fro  along  the  riversides 
in  search  of  food.  The  only  records  they  have  left 
of  their  existence  are  the  chipped  flint  or  quartzite 
arrow-heads,  scrapers,  and  axes,  dug  up  to-day  in  the 
alluvial  deposits  of  the  great  river  valleys.  By 
degrees  these  aboriginal  inhabitants  became  more 
civilised.  They  learned  to  smooth  and  polish  their 
rude  stone  implements,  perforating  them  with  holes 
so  as  to  attach  them  to  handles.  As  time  went  on 
they  made  gold  and  silver  ornaments,  and  manu- 
factured earthen  pots,  which  are  still  discovered  in 
the  strange  tombs,  constructed  of  upright  stone  slabs, 
wherein  they  buried  their  dead. 

From  their  homes  in  the  river  valleys,  lowlands, 
and  open  country,  these  primeval  people  of  India 
were  gradually  driven  by  other  invading  races  to  the 
lofty  mountain  ranges,  where,  amid  the  dense  forests, 
their  descendants  still  live  undisturbed,  retaining  all 

5 


50  INDIA  ON  THE  EVE  OF  CONQUEST. 

their  primitive  simplicity,  superstitions,  beliefs,  and 
habits.  During  the  taking  of  the  Census  of  1872 
it  was  ascertained  that  one-twelfth  of  the  population 
of  India,  nearly  twenty  millions  of  human  beings, 
consisted  of  these  living  fossils  of  primeval  times. 
There  they  remain,  a strange  study  to  the  historian 
and  anthropologist  : worshippers  of  spirits,  ghosts 
and  demons  ; worshippers  of  snakes,  trees,  mountains, 
streams,  and  aught  that  inspires  wonder,  fear,  or 
terror,  but  little  affected  by  the  efforts  of  their  British 
rulers  to  inculcate  the  most  primary  elements  of 
civilisation,  except  in  so  far  as  their  grosser  habits  of 
human  sacrifice,  infanticide,  and  intertribal  war  and 
bloodshed  have  been  sternly  suppressed. 

Respecting  the  earliest  invasions  of  India  there 
exists  but  the  vaguest  and  most  unreliable  evidence. 

The  whole  south  of  India  is  at  present  inhabited 
by  a people  speaking  cognate  languages  which  have 
been  grouped  together  and  called  Dravidian.  Inas- 
much as  these  languages  show  strong  affinities  with 
northern  languages  such  as  the  Biluchi,  the  Ugrian 
of  Siberia,  the  Finnish,  and  that  used  in  the  Behistun 
inscriptions  of  Media,  it  has  been  conjectured  that 
the  people  of  the  south  entered  India  from  the  north- 
west, and  were  gradually  driven  to  their  present 
habitat  by  stronger  and  more  recent  invaders.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  has  been  contended  that  the 
Dravidians  of  South  India  are  the  sole  surviving 
remnant  of  a great  race  originally  inhabiting  a wide 
continent  now  submerged,  but  once  stretching  from 
India  to  Madagascar,  Africa,  and  Melanesia.  Another 
race,  designated  as  the  Kolarian,  is  presumed,  on  even 


THE  A EVANS. 


51 


weaker  evidence,  to  have  entered  India  from  the 
north-east  and,  checked  in  its  conquering  career  by 
the  Dravidians,  to  have  been  driven  back  to  its  present 
home  in  the  north  and  north-east  of  the  Deccan. 

Again,  along  the  lower  slopes  of  the  Himalayas 
we  find  a people  giving  clear  evidences  of  their  descent 
from  some  early  Chinese  or  Mongolian  immigrants. 

The  first  invading  race  whose  history  we  can  trace 
with  something  approaching  to  accuracy  was  the 
Aryan,  who  entered  India  probably  about  the  time 
of  Abraham,  some  two  thousand  years  before  the 
Christian  era. 

The  language  of  these  invaders  was  the  ancient 
Sanskrit,  from  which,  through  two  early  vernaculars 
the  Sauraseni  and  Magadhi,  all  the  modern  languages 
of  North  India  are  descended.  It  belongs  to  the 
same  family  as  the  Greek,  Slavo-Lettic,  Teutonic, 
Celtic,  and  Latin  of  the  West.  From  this  fact  it  has 
been  contended  that  all  these  languages  must  have 
sprung  from  some  original  common  parent  language 
spoken  by  an  united  Aryan  people  once  living  to- 
gether in  some  common  home.  So  far  the  evidence 
seems  unassailable  ; still  the  question  as  to  where  was 
the  Early  Home  of  the  Aryans  remains  unanswered. 
Professor  Max  Muller  holds  that  it  was  somewhere 
in  Asia  ; Dr.  Schrader  says  that  it  was  in  European 
Russia  ; Herr  Penka  sees  grounds  for  believing  that 
it  was  somewhere  in  Scandinavia  ; while  Mr.  Huxley 
asserts  that  it  was  in  Europe,  somewhere  east  of  the 
Central  Highlands  and  west  of  the  Ural  range  of 
mountains. 

Wherever  the  Aryans  came  from  it  is  certain  that 


52 


INDIA  ON  THE  EVE  OF  CONQUEST. 


they  invaded  India  as  foreigners,  possessing  all  the 
rude  vigour  and  determination  to  succeed  in  the 
struggle  for  life  characteristic  of  dwellers  in  cool  and 
northern  climes.  They  found  India  inhabited  by  the 
descendants  of  the  aboriginal  races  and  later  invaders 
on  whom  they  looked  down  with  haughty  contempt. 
In  their  Yedic  hymns,  which  they  sang  to  their  Divine 
Beings,  the  Devas,  or  Bright  Ones,  they  have  left  the 
record  of  their  wars,  their  victories,  hopes,  and  aspira- 
tions. To  their  god  Indra,  the  Indian  Zeus,  they 
sang  their  song  of  praise,  for  he  it  was  who  “ flays 
the  enemy  of  his  black  skin,  he  kills  him,  he  reduces 
him  to  ashes.” 

Wearing  armour  and  helmets,  with  horses  and 
chariots,  armed  with  bows  and  arrows,  swords  and 
battle-axes,  drinking  their  intoxicating  Soma  juice, 
and  eating  the  flesh  of  buffaloes,  bulls  and  cows,  they 
drove  before  them  their  enemies  whom  they  describe 
as  scarcely  human,  black,  no-nosed,  godless,  infidel, 
and  eaters  of  raw  flesh.  They  gradually  conquered 
the  land  of  the  Five  Rivers — the  Indus,  Jehlam, 
Chenab,  Ravi,  and  Sutlej,  advancing  by  the  sixth 
century  K.C.  as  far  as  the  upper  reaches  of  the  Ganges 
and  Jumna.  In  the  holy  land  of  Brahmavarta,  lying 
between  the  Sarasvati  and  Drishadvati,  the  singers 
of  the  Yedic  hymns,  the  priests,  or  Brahmans,  as  they 
came  to  be  called,  founded  their  chief  schools  of 
learning,  whence  to  the  south,  and  north,  and  further 
east,  they  spread  tne  civilising  influence  of  their  high 
culture  and  moral  force  of  character.  In  the  days 
of  the  Lawgiver  Manu  it  was  held  of  Brahmavarta 
“ that  by  a Brahman  who  has  been  born  in  that  land 


Aryan  conquests. 


53 


shall  all  men  on  earth  be  instructed  as  to  their  cha- 
racter." To-day  in  every  Hindu  village  of  India  the 
cultured  Brahman  will  be  found  to  move  supreme, 
his  learning  to  be  honoured,  the  high  ideas  of  morality 
he  inculcates  respected,  his  deep  ponderings  over  the 
mystery  of  creation,  the  soul  and  Divine  Essence 
revered  and  studied.  From  the  earliest  times  these 
reciters  of  the  Yedic  hymns,  who  grew  to  be 
family  priests  or  Brahmans,  offerers  of  the  burned 
offerings  to  their  deities,  were  held  to  be  the  first 
among  men,  the  very  mouthpiece  of  the  gods,  created 
by  a special  creation  from  the  head  of  the  Creator. 
Kings  and  warriors  were  but  sprung  from  the  arms 
of  the  Creator  to  conquer  the  unbelievers  and  subdue 
them  to  the  will  of  the  priestly  legislators.  The  black 
aboriginal  races  were  all  sprung  from  the  feet  of  the 
Creator  for  servile  labour.  Gradually  the  divisions  of 
the  people  according  to  colour,  race,  occupation,  or 
religion  extended  itself  until  each  caste,  or  class, 
became  rigidly  separated  from  the  other,  its  traditions 
and  customs  stereotyped  for  ever  by  the  priestly 
ordinances  enunciated,  and  believed  in  as  though 
they  were  revealed  to  the  Brahmans  from  before  all 
time.  Even  death  itself  could  put  no  end  to  these 
caste  distinctions  between  race  and  race,  between 
occupation  and  occupation,  between  one  religious 
sect  and  another.  Let  but  the  individual  overstep 
the  narrow  limits  allotted  for  his  course  of  life  and 
duty  in  this  world,  his  soul  or  undying  part  would, 
after  having  reaped  its  punishment  as  awarded  by  the 
gods,  return  to  earth  to  be  reborn,  sometimes  in  a 
man  of  a lower  grade  of  society,  sometimes  as  an 


54  INDIA  ON  THE  EVE  OF  CONQUEST. 

animal,  or  in  case  its  transgressions  were  great,  as 
a creeping  or  crawling  insect,  or  as  an  evil  spirit  ever 
to  roam  without  rest. 

The  Aryans  in  their  ancestral  homes  had  wor- 
shipped the  expanse  of  the  heavens,  the  rosy-fingered 
Dawn,  the  Sun,  the  God  of  the  Storms,  and  the 
good  God  the  Giver  of  Fire  to  Mortals ; but  in  their 
new  homes  in  the  East  they,  for  the  first  time,  fully 
realised  the  exceeding  might  and  majesty  of  Nature 
in  all  her  varied  manifestations.  Slowly  along  with 
the  growth  of  a belief  that  man  was  possessed  of  a 
Soul,  an  immortal  undying  principle  within  himself, 
grew  the  knowledge  that  behind  all  the  phenomena 
of  Nature  lay  the  unchanging,  omnipotent,  and  om- 
niscient principle,  the  eternal  essence,  Brahman,  ever 
manifesting  itself  in  different  places,  times,  and  forms. 
Unfortunately  the  rude  superstitions,  savage  customs, 
and  primitive  beliefs  of  the  aboriginal  inhabitants  and 
despised  servile  classes  were  tolerated  and  accepted 
to  a certain  extent  by  a large  portion  of  their  more 
civilised  conquerors.  The  influence  of  the  teaching 
of  Buddha,  from  the  sixth  century  B.C.  onward,  made 
but  small  impression  on  the  great  mass  of  the  people, 
for  not  only  did  he  and  his  followers  live  apart  from 
the  general  community,  seeking  out  their  own  salva- 
tion by  avowed  renunciation  of  the  world,  but  the 
subsequent  worship  of  their  relics  and  images  spread 
far  and  wide  an  idolatry  which  in  more  or  less 
debasing  forms  gradually  enslaved  the  religious 
sentiments  of  the  uneducated  Hindus. 

The  seventh  century  of  our  era  saw  a strange 
change  come  when  the  devastating  wave  of  Muham- 


THE  MUHAMMADANS. 


55 


madan  invasions  commenced  to  sweep  over  North 
India.  These  new  invaders,  vowed  by  their  creed  to 
root  out  idolatry  in  the  lands  which  they  conquered, 
and  to  subdue  disbelievers  in  the  One  True  God  and 
Muhammad  as  the  Prophet  of  that  God,  not  only 
desolated  the  land,  but  broke  in  pieces  the  Hindu 
idols,  razed  to  the  ground  the  magnificent  temples 


MUHAMMADANS  PRAYING. 


of  North  India,  and  slew,  in  their  fanatic  zeal,  the 
Brahman  priests  and  Buddhist  monks.  Raid  after 
raid,  invasion  after  invasion,  took  place.  Mahmud 
of  Ghazni,  after  twenty-five  years’  fighting  and  seven- 
teen incursions,  succeeded,  in  the  year  1030,  in 
subduing  the  western  districts  of  the  Punjab.  The 
story  is  told  how  he  was  offered  an  enormous  ransom 


56 


INDIA  ON  THE  EVE  OF  CONQUEST. 


if  he  would  spare  the  sacred  idol  in  the  holy  temple 
of  Somnath.  He  scornfully  replied  that  he  was  a 
breaker  and  not  a seller  of  idols,  and,  cleaving  the 
image  asunder,  was  astonished  to  see  pour  out  at 
his  feet  a vast  store  of  jewels  which  had  been  con- 
cealed there  by  the  priests.  From  the  temple  he 
carried  back  to  Afghanistan  the  sandal-wood  gates 
which  Lord  Ellenborough  fondly,  though  erroneously, 
imagined  he  recovered  and  restored  to  the  Hindus 
after  the  Afghanistan  War  in  1842. 

The  first  Muhammadan  Emperor  who  firmly 
established  his  sway  in  India  was  Kutab  ud  din,  a 
Turk!  slave.  He  raised  himself  to  power  about  1206, 
and  his  own  historian  records  that  in  his  days  “ the 
realm  was  filled  with  friends  and  cleared  of  foes  ; his 
bounty  was  continuous  and  so  was  his  slaughter.” 
More  terrible  were  the  woes  and  sufferings  of  the 
people  under  the  Emperor  Muhammad  Tughlak, 
who  ruled  from  the  year  1325  to  1351.  With 
fiendish  cruelty,  akin  to  the  animal  lust  of  a man- 
eating  tiger,  his  fierce  nature  could  only  be  appeased 
by  deeds  of  inhuman  wickedness.  Enclosing  large 
tracts  of  country  he  drove  the  inoffensive  inhabitants 
towards  the  centre  so  that  he  and  his  favourite  com- 
rades might  revel  in  man-hunts,  slaughtering  human 
beings  as  though  they  were  wild  beasts.  His  nephew 
who  rebelled  against  him,  was  flayed  alive,  and  no 
one  in  the  kingdom  dared  afterwards  to  dispute  his 
dictates. 

These  terrors  were  but  a prelude  to  the  storm 
which  burst  over  the  land  in  1398,  when  Timur,  or 
Tamerlane,  collected  together  all  the  wild  roving 


THE  MUCH  A IS. 


57 


bands  of  Tartary,  and  swept  down  through  the  north- 
west passes  of  Afghanistan  across  the  Punjab  towards 
Delhi.  The  imperial  city  surrendered  under  a promise 
of  safety,  only  to  be  given  up  to  the  flames  and 
pillaged  by  the  fierce  horsemen  who  slew  the  inhabi- 
tants so  that  the  streets  were  rendered  impassable  for 
the  space  of  six  days.  Tamerlane  and  his  savage 
soldiery  retreated  laden  with  the  hoarded-up  wealth 
of  centuries,  leaving  naught  behind  them  but  the 
ruins  and  ashes  of  burned  cities  and  the  wailing  of 
the  desolate  inhabitants. 

After  his  departure  India  was  for  a time  left  in 
peace.  Muhammadan  Emperors  were  enthroned  at 
Delhi  while  local  chieftains  held  independent  sway  in 
the  more  distant  provinces. 

At  length,  in  1526,  Babar  the  Lion  marched  down 
at  the  head  of  his  hardy  northern  horsemen  from  the 
Afghanistan  side  of  the  mountains  and  established 
the  rule  of  the  Mughals. 

Nothing  illustrates  more  forcibly  the  fact  that  the 
Mughals,  as  well  as  their  successors,  were  foreigners 
in  the  land  of  India  than  the  words  in  which  Babar 
records  his  first  impressions  on  seeing  the  sunlit 
plains  of  India.  “ I had  never  before  seen  countries  of 
warm  temperature,”  he  wrote,  “ nor  the  country  of 
Hindustan.  Immediately  on  reaching  them  I beheld 
a new  world  : the  grass  was  different,  the  trees  dif- 
ferent, the  wild  animals  of  a different  sort,  the  birds 
of  a different  plumage.  The  manners  and  customs 
of  the  wandering  tribes  of  a different  kind.  I was 
struck  with  astonishment,  and  indeed  there  was  room 
for  wonder.” 


INDIA  ON  THE  EVE  OF  CONQUEST. 


58 


Again  he  writes  in  the  same  Memoirs  : “ Hindustan 
has  but  little  to  recommend  it.  The  inhabitants  are 
not  good-looking,  they  have  no  idea  of  the  pleasures 
of  society,  they  have  no  genius  or  generalising  talent, 
neither  polish  of  manner,  amiability  or  sympathetic 
feeling,  neither  ingenuity  or  mechanical  invention, 
nor  knowledge  or  skill  in  architecture,  they  have  no 
decent  houses,  good  fruit,  ice  or  cold  water,  they  have 
neither  baths  nor  colleges,  neither  candles  nor  candle- 
sticks ; if  you  want  to  read  or  write  by  night  you 
must  have  a filthy,  half-naked  fellow  standing  over 
you  all  the  time  with  a glaring  torch.” 

Under  the  early  Mughal  Emperors  the  whole  of 
India  north  of  the  Vindhya  range  of  mountains  was 
united  into  one  great  empire,  its  cities  adorned  with 
stately  palaces,  tombs,  temples,  and  mosques,  ranging 
from  the  Mausoleum  of  Humayun,  with  its  tall 
Persian  dome  and  glazed  tiles,  on  to  Akbar’s  palace 
and  fort  at  Agra,  his  fairy  buildings  and  imposing 
mosque  at  Fatehpur  Sikri,  his  own  tomb,  the  most 
stately  and  graceful  ever  designed  and  erected  by  any 
monarch  of  the  East,  down  to  the  gorgeous  buildings 
such  as  the  Taj  Mahal,  the  fort,  palaces,  and  Great 
Mosque  at  Delhi,  and  many  others  which  the  luxu- 
rious taste  of  Shah  Jahan  revelled  in  seeing  grow  up 
around  him. 

The  long  and  beneficent  reign  (1556  to  1605),  of 
Akbar,  an  enlightened  monarch  whose  fame  rivals 
that  of  Louis  XIV.  and  Elizabeth,  saw  not  only  the 
consolidation  of  the  empire  in  the  north,  but  also 
witnessed  the  gradual  decay  of  the  Portuguese  settle- 
ments, and  ended  with  the  advent  of  the  Dutch  and 


MUGHAL  EMPERORS. 


59 


English  merchants.  Jahangir  succeeded  his  father 
Akbar  to  an  empire  extending  over  Kandahar  and 
Kashmir  in  the  north,  over  Malwa,  Gujarat,  and 
Sind  in  the  west,  to  Orissa  and  Bengal  in  the  east. 

Sir  Thomas  Roe,  ambassador  from  King  James  I. 
to  the  Court  of  Jahangir,  gives  in  his  well-known 
letters  a full  and  fairly  accurate  account  of  the 
country  and  social  life  at  this  period.  On  all  sides 
the  English  ambassador  discerned  signs  of  coming 
changes.  “ Beware,”  he  wrote 
“beware  of  scattering  your  goods 
in  divers  parts  and  engaging  your 
stocke  and  servants  farre  into 
the  country,  for  the  time  will 
come  when  all  in  these  king- 
domes  will  be  in  combustion, 
and  a few  yeares  warre  will  not 
decide  the  inveterate  malice  laid 
up  on  all  parts  against  a day  of 
vengeance.” 

At  his  first  interview  the  am- 
bassador presented  Jahangir  with 
some  presents,  and  unfortunately, 
also,  with  a case  of  wine,  whereon  Jahangir  immediately 
got  so  drunk  that  business  had  to  be  suspended. 
“In  fact,”  as  Sir  Thomas  Roe  writes,  “there  is  nothing 
more  welcome  here,  nor  did  I ever  see  men  so  fond  of 
drink  as  the  King  and  Prince  are  of  red  wine.  . . . 
I think  4 or  5 casks  will  be  more  welcome  than  the 
richest  gems  in  Cheapside.” 

Although  Jahangir  indulged  in  nightly  debauches 
with  his  nobles  a strict  silence  was  ever  supposed  to 


to  the  Company — 


AKBAR. 

(From  Holden’s  “ Mogul 
Emperors.”) 


6o 


INDIA  ON  THE  EVE  OF  CONQUEST. 


reign  in  Court  circles  on  the  subject.  The  Emperor 
once  being  reminded  by  an  incautious  companion 
of  a previous  night’s  saturnalia,  expressed  extreme 
astonishment  and  made  diligent  inquiries  respecting 
those  who  were  present,  “ fined  some  one,  some  two, 
some  three  thousand  rupies,  some  lesse,  and  some  that 
were  neerer  his  person  he  caused  to  be  whipped  before 
him,  receiving  one  hundred  and  thirtie  stripes  with  a 
most  terrible  instruement,  having  at  each  end  of  foure 
cords,  irons  like  Spurrowels,  so  that  each  stroke 
made  foure  wounds.  When  they  lay  for  dead  on  the 
ground,  he  commanded  the  standers  by  to  foot  them, 
and  after,  the  Porters  to  breake  their  staves  upon 
them.  Thus  most  cruelly  mangled  and  bruised  they 
were  carried  out,  of  which  one  dyed  in  the  place.” 
Although  Sir  Thomas  Roe  was,  like  most  Eng- 
lishmen, entirely  out  of  sympathy  with  his  Eastern 
surroundings  and  the  modes  of  thought  of  the  people 
with  whom  he  came  in  contact,  still  his  remarks  are 
of  historical  value,  as  being  those  of  a cultured  man 
of  shrewd,  common  sense,  whose  imagination  never 
led  him  into  excesses  of  extravagant  praise  or 
vulgar  abuse.  His  remarks  may  therefore  be  taken 
as  giving  an  accurate  though  somewhat  prosaic  de- 
scription of  the  outward  conditions  of  social  life  in 
India  at  the  time  he  wrote.  In  one  of  his  letters, 
dated  from  Ajmere,  on  January  27,  1615,  he  says: 
“ The  buildings  are  all  base,  of  mudde,  one  story 
high,  except  in  Surat,  where  are  some  stone  houses, 
but  I know  not  by  what  policie  the  King  seekes 
the  ruine  of  all  the  ancient  Cities  which  were  bravely 
built  and  now  lye  desolate  and  ruined.  His  owne 


S/R  THOMAS  ROE. 


6l 


houses  are  of  stone,  both  in  good  forme  and  faire,  but 
his  great  men  build  not,  for  want  of  inheritance,  but 
as  farre  as  1 have  yet  seene  live  in  Tents,  or  houses 
worse  then  a cottager  ; yet  where  the  King  affects,  as 
at  Agra,  because  it  is  a city  erected  by  him,  the 
Buildings  are  (as  is  reported)  faire  and  of  carved 
stone.”  Marching  with  the  Emperor’s  retinue  near 
Godah,  which  is  described  as  a land  fruitful  in  corn, 
cotton  and  cattle,  he  incidentally  mentions  that  in 
the  fields  by  the  roadside  he  saw  the  bodies  of  one 
hundred  naked  men  who  had  been  slain  for  a crime 
then  very  common — highway  robbery.  Further  on 
he  passed  an  embassy  carrying  as  a gift  to  the 
Emperor  the  heads  of  three  hundred  rebels  who  had 
been  put  to  death  in  Kandahar.  Godah  he  describes 
as  the  best  town  he  had  seen  in  India,  “ for  that  there 
were  some  houses  two  stories  high,  and  such  as  a 
Pedler  might  not  scorne  to  keepe  shop  in,  all  covered 
with  tyle.” 

Sir  Thomas  Roe,  having  wasted  much  time  in 
fruitless  endeavours  to  induce  the  Emperor  to  sign 
a treaty  granting  trading  privileges  to  the  Company 
in  perpetuity,  wrote  home  that  in  his  opinion  it  was 
inadvisable  to  seek  to  acquire  land  in  India,  or  even 
to  erect  forts  along  the  sea  coast,  “ by  my  consent 
you  shall  no  way  ingage  yourselves  but  at  sea  where 
you  are  like  to  gaine  as  often  as  to  lose.  ...  It  is  the 
beggering  of  the  Portugal],  notwithstanding  his  many 
rich  residences  and  territories,  that  he  keepes  souldiers 
that  spend  it : yet  his  garrisons  are  meane.  He 
never  profited  by  the  Indies,  since  he  defended  them- 
Observe  this  well.” 


62  INDIA  ON  THE  EVE  OF  CONQUEST. 

Finally  the  ambassador  beseeches  that  never  again 
should  a gentleman  of  his  rank  be  sent  on  an 
embassy  to  the  Mughal  Court : “ A meaner  agent 
would  among  these  proud  Moors  better  effect  your 
business.  My  quality  often  for  ceremonies  either 
begets  you  enemies  or  suffers  unworthily.  ...  I have 
moderated  according  to  my  discretion  but  with  a 
swoln  heart.” 

It  was  not  long  before  Sir  Thomas  Roe’s  fore- 
bodings as  to  the  future  perils  and  troubles  which 
lay  in  store  for  the  empire  proved  true.  When,  in 
1658,  the  Emperor  Shah  Jahan,  who  had  succeeded 
his  father  Jahangir  in  1627,  was  reported  to  be  dying, 
his  four  sons  broke  into  open  rebellion,  declaring  that 
the  sword  alone  should  determine  the  right  of  suc- 
cession. The  city  of  Agra  was  panic-stricken,  the 
inhabitants  closed  their  shops  and  waited  the  issue  in 
fear  and  trembling.  At  length  Aurangzib,  the  third 
son  of  the  sick  Emperor,  who  had  diligently  acquired 
the  reputation  of  being  a devout  Muhammadan, 
Puritan,  ascetic,  and  saintly  in  all  his  habits,  defeated 
his  brothers,  two  of  whom,  Dara  and  Murad-Bakhsh, 
he  put  to  death,  the  third,  Shuja,  escaping  to  be 
never  heard  of  more.  Shah  Jahan  was  placed  in 
captivity,  where  for  six  long  years  he  mourned  his 
sad  fate  and  that  of  his  murdered  sons. 

Aurangzib  succeeded  to  the  great  Mughal  Empire, 
then  possessing  an  army  of  three  hundred  thousand 
horse  and  four  hundred  thousand  foot,  and  a yearly 
income  of  nearly  ninety  millions  sterling.  Before  he 
became  Emperor  he  had  subdued  three  of  the  five 
great  independent  kingdoms  of  the  south,  and  before 


THE  MARATHAS. 


63 


him  still  remained  unaccomplished  the  task  of  uniting 
to  the  empire  the  two  more  southern  kingdoms  of 
Golconda  and  Bfjapur,  then  held  by  representatives 
of  the  Kutab  Shahf  and  Adil  Shahi  dynasties.  For 
twenty  years  he  wasted  his  resources  in  endeavouring 
to  conquer  these  kingdoms,  and  when  at  length  they 
fell  he  was  obliged  to  remain  at  the  head  of  his  troops 
for  twenty  years  longer  endeavouring  to  keep  order 
in  his  unwieldy  dominions,  and  drive  back  his  ever- 
increasing  foes. 

With  the  Rajput  princes  of  Rajputana,  whom  he 
had  alienated  from  the  throne  by  his  religious  intole- 
rance, he  was  obliged  to  make  treaties  of  peace  ; with 
the  Sikhs  in  the  Punjab,  whom  his  persecutions  had 
changed  from  a religious  sect  into  a nation  of  fierce 
soldiers,  sworn  to  die  fighting  in  defence  of  their 
faith,  he  waged  a war  of  extermination,  torturing 
and  slaying  their  captive  leaders  with  fiendish  cruel- 
ties ; while  the  Marathas,  who  under  Sivaji  had  risen 
to  power  in  the  Deccan,  harassed  his  armies,  cut  off 
his  supplies,  and  forced  him  to  yield  them  chauth, 
or  one-fourth  of  the  revenue  which  they  claimed  a 
right  to  levy  by  force  of  arms  from  all  the  kingdoms 
of  the  south.  In  1664  Sivaji,  at  the  head  of  his 
horsemen  pillaged  and  burned  Surat  as  far  as  the 
English  factory',  which  was  only  saved  from  the 
flames  by  the  heroic  defence  of  the  Governor,  Sir 
George  Oxindon. 

From  the  letters  of  the  courtly  French  physician 
Dr.  Francois  Bernier,  who  travelled  through  North 
India  from  1656  to  1668,  it  is  easy  to  see  how  the 
distress  of  the  people  was  daily  increasing,  and  the 


64 


INDIA  ON  THE  EVE  OF  CONQUEST. 


power  of  the  Emperor  to  preserve  peace  and  order 
over  his  extended  dominions  was  passing  away,  so 
that  it  needed  but  a firm  hand  to  wrest  the  sceptre 
from  out  the  feeble  hold  of  the  effete  descendants  of 
Babar.  The  keynote  to  the  situation  is  to  be  found 
in  the  remark  of  Bernier  : “ The  Great  Mogol  is  a 
foreigner  in  Hindustan,  a descendant  of  Tamerlane, 
chief  of  those  Mogols  from  Tartary  who,  about  the 
year  1401,  overran  and  conquered  the  Indies.  Con- 
sequently he  finds  himself  in  a hostile  country  con- 
taining hundreds  of  Gentiles  to  one  Mogol,  or  even 
to  one  Mahometan." 

As  a matter  of  fact  it  was  ascertained  by  the 
Census  of  1891  that  while  the  population  of  India 
amounts  to  287,223.431,  but  57,321,164  were  classified 
as  Muhammadan,  of  whom  it  would  be  difficult  to 
say  how  many  arc  merely  converted  Hindus.  It 
must  be  remembered,  too,  that  the  inevitable  law  of 
India,  with  its  enervating  climate,  is  that  the  land 
can  never  be  long  held  or  firmly  governed  by  a race 
which  does  not  periodically  renew  its  strength  and 
manhood  by  fresh  recruits  drawn  from  northern  or 
temperate  climes. 

Thus  Bernier  wrote  : “It  should  be  added,  how- 
ever, that  children  of  the  third  and  fourth  generation, 
who  have  the  brown  complexion  and  languid  manner 
of  this  country  of  their  nativity,  are  held  in  much  less 
respect  than  new-comers,  and  are  seldom  invested 
with  official  situation.” 

Equally  important  is  the  observation,  with  regard 
to  the  early  European  settlers,  made  by  John  Fryer, 
a surgeon  to  the  Company,  who  travelled  in  India 


FRANCOIS  DERNIER. 


65 


during  this  period,  “ the  Company  have  sent  out 
English  women,  but  they  beget  a sickly  generation, 
and  as  the  Dutch  well  observe  those  thrive  best  that 
come  of  an  European  Father  and  Indian  mother.” 

The  whole  history  of  the  period  is  summed  up  by 
Sir  W.  Wilson  Hunter  as  follows  : “The  ancestors  of 
Aurangzib,  who  swooped  down  on  India  from  the 
North,  were  ruddy  men  in  boots  ; the  courtiers  among 
whom  Aurangzib  grew  up  were  pale  persons  in  petti- 
coats. Babar,  the  founder  of  the  empire,  had  swum 
every  river  which  he  met  with  during  thirty  years’ 
campaigning : the  luxurious  nobles  around  the 

youthful  Aurangzib  wore  skirts  made  of  innumerable 
folds  of  finest  white  muslins,  and  went  to  war  in 
palanquins.” 

That  the  people  themselves  could  suffer  but  little 
from  a change  of  their  effete  rulers  may  be  seen  from 
the  description  given  by  Bernier  and  other  travellers 
in  India  of  the  general  insecurity  of  life  and  property. 
“ No  adequate  description  can  be  conveyed,”  wrote 
Bernier,  “ of  the  sufferings  of  the  people.  The  cudgel 
and  the  whip  compel  them  to  incessant  labour  for  the 
benefit  of  others  ; and,  driven  to  despair  by  every 
kind  of  cruel  treatment,  their  revolt  or  their  flight  is 
only  prevented  by  the  presence  of  a military  force.” 
Again  he  remarks  : “ As  the  ground  is  seldom  tilled 
otherwise  than  by  compulsion,  and  as  no  person 
is  found  willing  and  able  to  repair  the  ditches  and 
canals  for  the  conveyance  of  water,  it  happens  that  the 
whole  country  is  badly  cultivated.”  More  sweeping 
is  his  statement,  “ It  is  owing  to  this  miserable  system 
of  government  that  most  towns  in  Hindustan  are 


66 


INDIA  ON  THE  EVE  OF  CONQUEST. 


made  up  of  earth,  mud,  and  other  wretched  materials  ; 
that  there  is  no  city  or  town  which,  if  it  be  not  already 
ruined  and  deserted,  does  not  bear  evident  marks  of 
approaching  decay.” 

Another  French  traveller,  Tavernier,  who  made 
voyages  to  India  from  1640  to  1667  says  : “ You  may 
see  in  India  whole  provinces  like  deserts  from  whence 
the  peasants  have  fled  on  account  of  the  oppression 
of  the  Governors.  Under  cover  of  the  fact  that  they 
are  themselves  Muhammadans  they  prosecute  (?) 
these  poor  idolaters  to  the  utmost,  and  if  any  of  the 
latter  become  Muhammadans  it  is  in  order  not  to 
work  any  more ; they  become  soldiers  or  Fakirs 
who  are  people  who  make  a profession  of  having 
renounced  the  world  and  live  upon  alms,  but  in 
reality  they  are  all  great  rascals.” 

Dr.  Fryer  in  his  letters  gives  even  a more  dismal 
account  of  the  people,  who  he  says  are  “ drudges 
to  their  Masters  and  Prince,  who  here  as  in  all 
India  is  sole  Proprietor  of  lands  ; allowing  the  oc- 
cupiers no  more  than  a bare  subsistence,  and  not 
that  when  a bad  year  fills  not  the  Publick  granaries  ; 
drubbing  the  poor  Hindus  till  their  bones  rattle  in 
their  skins,  they  being  forced  often  to  sell  their 
children  for  rice.” 

Even  the  Brahman  priests  suffered  at  the  hands  of 
those  of  their  own  faith,  the  Marathas,  who,  says  Dr. 
Fryer,  “ have  now  in  limbo  several  Brachmins,  whose 
flesh  they  tear  with  pincers  heated  red  hot,  drub  them 
on  the  shoulders  to  extreme  anguish,  though  accord- 
ing to  their  law  it  is  forbidden  to  strike  a Brachmin.” 

More  important  still  is  the  account  given  by 


WEAKNESS  OF  ORIENTALS. 


67 


Bernier  of  the  essential  weakness  of  Oriental  troops 
so  soon  to  be  pitted  against  armies  disciplined  and 
held  together  by  English  officers.  This  weakness 
was  not  only  the  very  basis  of  the  policy  of  Dupleix 
and  Clive,  it  not  only  rendered  the  conquests  of 
the  English  inevitable  and  certain  so  long  as  they 
could  pursue  their  course  free  from  European  rivalry, 
but  further  it  is  the  basis,  at  least  the  material 
basis,  on  which  the  stability  of  the  British  rule  in 
India  is  to-day  firmly  established  free  from  all  fear 
of  internal  attack.  “ I could  never  see,”  wrote 
Bernier,  “ these  soldiers  destitute  of  order  and 
marching  with  the  irregularity  of  a herd  of  animals, 
without  reflecting  upon  the  ease  with  which  25,000 
of  our  veterans  from  the  army  of  Flanders  . . . 
would  overcome  these  armies,  however  numerous.” 
“ These  immense  armies,”  he  continues,  “ frequently 
perform  great  feats,  but  when  thrown  into  confusion 
it  is  impossible  to  restore  them  to  discipline.” 

In  short,  the  time  had  come  when  some  foreign 
power  was  destined  to  stand  forth  and  fulfil  the 
dream  of  Akbar  as  fashioned  by  the  late  Poet 
Laureate : — 


“ I watch’d  my  son 

And  those  that  follow’d,  loosen  stone  from  stone 
All  my  fair  work  ; and  from  the  ruin  arose 
The  shriek  and  curse  of  trampled  millions,  even 
As  in  times  before  ; but  while  I groan’d 
From  out  the  sunset  poured  an  alien  race 
Who  fitted  stone  to  stone  again,  and  Truth, 

Peace,  Love,  and  Justice  came  and  dwelt  therein.” 


IV. 

FRENCH  EFFORTS  TO  ESTABLISH  AN  EMPIRE  IN 
INDIA. 


For  long  the  Dutch,  French,  and  English  trading 
Companies  had  been  content  to  restrict  themselves  to 
commerce  ; their  interests  not  travelling  outside  the 
limits  of  their  settlements  along  the  sea  coast.  Their 
servants  were  merchants  engaged  in  trade,  drawing 
but  a poor  salary.  The  English  president  of  a 
factor}'  such  as  Surat  received  .£500  a year,  the  head 
merchants  £40  a year  after  they  had  first  served  for 
five  years  as  writers  on  a yearly  salary  of  ^IO,  and 
then  for  three  years  as  factors  on  ,£20  a year. 

These  merchants  were  for  the  most  part  unnoticed 
by  the  Mughal  Emperors,  though  they  were  sometimes 
harassed  by  the  native  governors  who  ruled  over  the 
territories  in  the  vicinity  of  their  settlements.  Neither 
the  English  nor  Dutch  ever  dreamed  of  interfering  in 
the  internal  politics  of  the  country,  or  even  of  acquir- 
ing land  more  than  sufficient  for  the  defence  and  pro- 
tection of  their  trading  stations. 

The  English  settlement  started  at  Madras  in  1639, 

on  land  granted  by  the  ruler  at  Chandragiri,  gradually 

68 


FRENCH  IN  SOUTH  INDIA. 


69 


extended  itself  five  miles  along  the  coast  and  one 
mile  inland.  North  and  south  of  Madras  from  the 
river  Kistna  to  Cape  Comorin,  the  land  was  known 
as  the  Karnatik  ruled  by  a native  Governor  or  Nawab, 
subordinate  to  a Viceroy  or  Nizdm  of  the  south,  who 
held  his  office  direct  from  the  Emperor  at  Delhi. 
Tanjore  and  Trichincpoli  were  under  the  charge  of 
their  native  Rajas,  or  Chieftains,  who  were  accountable 
to  the  Nawab. 

In  1672  when  the  last  native  ruler  of  Bi'japur,  Sher 
Khan  Lodi,  found  himself  in  want  of  money,  he 
borrowed  it  from  the  French,  and,  according  to  Oriental 
custom,  gave  them  in  return  the  right  to  collect  the 
revenues  arising  from  the  district  around  Pondicherry. 
Here  Francis  Martin  fortified  his  position,  making  it 
secure  against  the  raids  of  wandering  Mardthas  who 
in  1677  swept  past  Madras  and  pillaged  the  interven- 
ing villages. 

In  1740  these  Marathds  to  the  number  of  ten 
thousand  came  swarming  down  on  the  south  and 
slew  the  Nawab  of  the  Karndtik.  Safdar  Ah',  his 
successor,  deemed  it  wise  in  the  disturbed  state  of 
affairs  to  send  his  mother  and  family  to  the  safe 
keeping  of  the  French  at  Pondicherry — a precaution 
also  adopted  by  Chanda  Sahib,  Raja  of  Trichinopoli, 
who  sent  there  his  wife  and  property. 

The  next  year  the  Marathas,  on  their  annual  raid, 
carried  off  Chanda  Sahib  to  their  northern  fortress  of 
Sdtara,  leaving  one  of  their  own  leaders,  Morari  Rao, 
with  fourteen  thousand  picked  troops  in  charge  of  his 
territories.  The  Viceroy  of  the  south,  Nizam-ul-Mulk, 
drove  out  Morari  Rao  and  in  place  of  Safdar  Ah' 


/o 


FRENCH  EFFORTS  IN  INDIA. 


who  had  been  assassinated,  nominated  in  1743,  one 
Anwar-ud-Din,  a soldier  of  fortune,  to  the  governor- 
ship of  the  Karnatik. 

When  England  became  involved  in  war  with 
France,  on  the  death  of  Charles  VI.  of  Austria, 
respecting  the  succession  of  Maria  Theresa,  the 
English  ships  appeared  in  1745  off  Pondicherry, 
then  held  by  its  new  Governor,  Joseph  Francois 
Dupleix.  Anwar-ud-Din,  remembering  the  services 
rendered  by  the  French  to  the  former  Governor  of 
the  Karnatik,  and  to  Chanda  Sahib,  in  protecting 
their  families  from  the  Marathas,  at  once  came  to 
the  rescue  and  threatened  vengeance  against  the 
English  unless  their  ships  departed  from  before  the 
factory^  of  his  friends  and  allies.  The  English  ships 
sailed  away,  and  on  returning  the  next  year  found 
that  the  French  Admiral  La  Bourdonnais  had  arrived 
from  Madagascar  with  a fleet  of  nine  ships  having  on 
board  3,342  men,  including  720  blacks.  After  a fight 
at  long  range,  lasting  from  four  in  the  afternoon  until 
seven  in  the  evening,  the  English  admiral  deemed  it 
advisable  to  retire  to  Ceylon,  leaving  the  French  fleet 
to  sail  for  Madras,  then  held  by  some  three  hundred 
men,  including  two  hundred  so-called  soldiers.  The 
chief  of  Madras,  Governor  Morse,  applied  in  vain  to 
the  native  Governor  of  the  Karnatik  for  protection. 
Forgetting  the  Eastern  maxim  that  those  seeking 
favours  should  not  appear  before  kings  or  rulers 
with  empty  hands,  his  envoys  carried  no  presents 
with  them,  nor  did  they  bring,  like  the  French,  any 
record  of  services  rendered  in  the  past,  so  the)' 
returned  to  Madras  with  their  mission  unaccom- 


CAPTURE  OF  MADRAS. 


7 1 


plished.  On  September  1 8th  the  French  batteries 
and  ships  opened  fire,  and  Fort  St.  George  sur- 
rendered on  the  2 ist  after  having  lost  five  men. 

Dupleix  had  promised  the  Governor  of  the  Karnatik 
to  hand  over  to  him  Madras  when  taken.  Unfortu- 
nately the  French  Admiral  La  Bourdonnais  had 
agreed  to  restore  Madras  to  the  English  for  the  sum 
of  .£421,666,  payable  in  Europe  in  six  months,  and, 
as  it  was  afterwards  alleged,  for  a personal  present 
of  £40,00x3 — a false  charge  of  which  he  was  acquitted 
by  his  own  Government. 

The  quarrel  between  the  French  admiral  and 
French  general  waged  fierce  and  long,  Dupleix 
striving  with  all  the  tenacity,  skill,  and  finesse  of 
which  he  was  so  perfect  a master,  to  oppose  La 
Bourdonnais  and  prevent  Madras  being  restored  to 
the  English.  In  the  midst  of  their  disputes  the 
annual  monsoon  storm  burst,  on  the  night  of  October 
13th,  and  of  the  admiral’s  eight  ships  four  foundered, 
two  were  virtually  destroyed,  and  two  rendered  un- 
seaworthy, while  over  twelve  hundred  of  his  men 
perished  in  the  seas. 

The  plans  of  La  Bourdonnais  were  wrecked.  He 
hastened  home  to  add  his  name  to  the  long  list  of 
those  whose  fame  and  life  have  been  sacrificed  in  their 
efforts  to  found  their  countries’  fortunes  in  the  East. 
He  was  cast  into  the  Bastille,  where  he  lay  for  three 
years  in  solitary  confinement,  dying  shortly  after  his 
release  of  a broken  heart. 

Dupleix  was  left  with  Madras  to  sell  or  to  destroy. 
He  tore  the  Treaty  of  La  Bourdonnais  in  pieces,  and 
sent  the  English  garrison  in  captivity  to  Pondicherry, 


FRENCH  SUCCESSES. 


73 


a few  daring  spirits  escaping  to  find  a refuge  in 
Fort  St.  David — a weak  fortress  twelve  miles  south 
of  Pondicherry — garrisoned  by  a handful  of  soldiers, 
one  hundred  Europeans,  and  one  hundred  sepoys. 

The  Governor  of  the  Karnatik  was,  however,  de- 
termined that  the  French  should  not  hold  Madras. 
He  advanced  at  the  head  of  six  thousand  horse  and 
three  thousand  foot  to  compel  Dupleix  to  keep  his 
promise,  certain  that  the  host  he  commanded  was 
sufficient  to  drive  all  foes  out  of  his  territories. 

For  one  hundred  years  the  foreigners  bad  been 
overlooked  by  the  native  rulers.  As  traders  they 
had  come  and  gone  peacefully.  If  they  dared  to 
transgress  the  will  of  the  Emperor  or  disobey  the 
dictates  of  his  Viceroy  in  the  south,  there  were  ten 
thousand  native  soldiers,  foot  and  horse,  for  every 
foreign  soldier  then  in  India. 

The  rude  awakening  was  now  to  come.  Four 
hundred  of  the  French  garrison  sallied  out  with 
two  small  field-pieces  to  meet  the  charge  of  the 
native  cavalry.  Slowly  the  French  force  opened 
out,  and  seventy  of  the  foremost  native  troopers 
fell  before  the  rapid  fire  of  the  French  guns.  The 
Xawab  and  his  army  turned  and  fled,  leaving  the 
French  masters  of  the  field  without  the  loss  of  a 
single  man. 

The  weakness  of  native  troops,  when  not  under  the 
discipline  and  firm  rule  of  European  officers,  had  been 
shown  by  the  Portuguese  in  1 504,  when  Pacheco,  with 
a little  over  one  hundred  Europeans  and  a few  hundred 
native  soldiers  of  the  King  of  Cannanore,  defeated  the 
Zamorin  of  Calicut,  driving  back  an  army  of  fifty 


7 4 


FRENCH  EFFORTS  IN  INDIA. 


thousand  with  heavy  loss.  It  was  pointed  out  by 
Leibnitz  to  Louis  XIV. ; it  was  known  to  Dupleix ; 
it  was  afterward  recognised  by  De  Boigne  when  he 
counselled  Scindia’s  invincible  Maratha  infantry  never 
to  dare  face  the  Company’s  troops  ; it  was  seen  later 
by  Baron  Hiigel,  who  told  Ranjit  Singh  that  the 
Sikhs  would  inevitably  fall  back  defeated  before  the 
English  battalions. 

While  the  army  of  the  Nawab  halted  on  the  banks 
of  the  Adyar  river,  wondering  over  its  defeat,  the 
brave  but  ill-fated  Mons.  Paradis  marched  forth 
against  it  from  Pondicherry  with  two  hundred  and 
fhirty  Europeans  and  seven  hundred  sepoys.  The 
French  were  now  without  guns,  yet,  rushing  through 
the  river,  they  drove  the  terror-stricken  army  before 
them,  the  pursuit  continuing  through  the  streets  of 
St.  Thome.  Fresh  troops  from  Madras  appeared  on 
the  scene  and  completed  the  rout.  Those  left  of  the 
Xawab’s  forces  found  refuge  behind  the  walls  of 
Arcot,  whence  they  spread  the  tidings  far  and  wide 
of  the  newly  discovered  power  of  the  foreign  traders. 

There  was  none  now  to  stav  the  advancing  tide  of 
French  supremacy.  The  English  entrenched  at  Fort 
St.  David  were  but  a few  hundred  in  number,  sup- 
ported by  some  hastily  armed  peons  or  servants. 
There  they  held  out,  although  the  French  advanced 
against  them  four  times,  until  Rear-Admiral  the  Hon. 
E.  Boscawen,  who  had  arrived  from  England  with 
fourteen  hundred  regular  troops  joined  the  fleet  of 
Admiral  Griffin,  and  came  to  the  rescue  with  thirty 
ships,  of  which  thirteen  were  ships  of  war.  The 
English  were  now  in  turn  able  to  lay  siege  to  Pondi- 


DUPLEIX. 


75 


cherry ; but  after  an  investment,  lasting  from  Sep- 
tember 6th  to  October  17th,  during  which  they  lost 
one  thousand  and  sixty-five  men,  and  the  French  but 
two  hundred  Europeans  and  fifty  natives,  the  mon- 
soon storm  burst  and  the  fleet  had  to  sail  away, 
leaving  Pondicherry  safe  in  the  hands  of  the  French. 
By  the  Treaty  of  Aix-la-Chapelle  peace  was  restored, 
and,  to  the  mortification  of  Dupleix,  Madras  was 
given  back  to  the  English  in  exchange  for  Cape  St. 
Breton. 

In  1748  the  Viceroy  of  the  south  died,  leaving  the 
succession  to  his  son  Nasi'r  Jang — a succession  disputed 
by  Muzaffar  Jang,  a grandson  of  Nizdm-ul-Mulk. 
Dupleix  again  played  his  game  with  consummate 
skill.  Throwing  in  his  lot  with  Muzaffar  Jang,  who 
had  been  joined  by  the  Marathas  and  Chanda  Sahib, 
freed  from  his  imprisonment  at  Satara,  the  combined 
army  advanced  against  Anwar-ud-Din,  Governor  of 
the  Karnatik. 

At  Ambur  Anwar-ud-Din  was  shot  through  the 
head  by  a stray  bullet,  his  army  scattered,  his  son, 
Muhammad  Ah',  escaping  to  Trichinopoli  to  seek  the 
protection  of  the  English.  Chanda  Sdhib  was  im- 
mediately proclaimed  at  Arcot  as  Governor  of  the 
Karndtik,  and  the  French  were  given  as  a reward 
for  their  aid  eighty-one  villages  near  Pondicherry. 

Dupleix  had  succeeded  at  length  in  gaining  political 
influence  over  the  internal  affairs  of  the  south,  stand- 
ing forth  as  the  friend  and  ally  of  the  Viceroy, 
Muzaffar  Jang,  and  the  Nawab  Chanda  Sahib.  The 
English,  on  the  other  hand,  had  cast  in  their  lot  with 
the  two  defeated  candidates,  Nasi'r  Jang  and  Mu- 


7 6 


FRENCH  EFFORTS  IN  INDIA. 


hammad  Ah'.  Whichever  side,  French  or  English, 
would  now  succeed  in  successfully  supporting  their 
rival  claimants  might  ultimately  hope  to  reign  supreme 
over  the  whole  political  affairs  of  the  south  of  India. 
The  French  quickly  followed  up  their  success  by 
capturing,  in  the  night-time,  with  a loss  of  but  twenty 
men,  the  fortress  of  Gingi,  a stronghold  of  Xasi'r  Jang, 
always  held  to  be  impregnable — a success  which 
enabled  them  to  induce  most  of  the  native  troops  to 
forsake  the  cause  of  Xasi'r  Jang,  who  soon  afterwards 
was  shot  through  the  heart  by  one  of  his  own  allies. 
Muzaffar  Jang  and  Chanda  Sahib  were  at  once,  amid 
a scene  of  Oriental  pomp,  respectively  installed  Vice- 
roy of  the  South,  and  Governor  of  the  Karnatik, 
Dupleix  receiving  in  return  the  title  of  Commander 
of  Seven  Hundred  Horse  and  the  right  to  coin 
money  current  all  over  the  south. 

The  French  were  now  dictators  over  the  affairs  of 
the  Karnatik,  ruling  in  the  name  of  Chanda  Sdhib. 
As  the  new  Viceroy  Muzaffar  Jang  was  being 
escorted  by  Mons.  Bussy  and  three  hundred  French 
soldiers  to  his  capital  at  Aurangabad  he  was  attacked 
by  some  opposing  native  forces  and  slain,  pierced 
by  a javelin  in  the  forehead.  The  position  was  at 
once  retrieved  by  Bussy.  Salabat  Jang,  a son  of 
XTizam-ul-Mulk,  was  proclaimed  Viceroy,  Bussy  re- 
maining with  his  troops  at  Aurangabad  to  support 
the  new  administration. 

The  policy  of  Dupleix  had  succeeded  beyond 
expectation  ; the  English  were  left  without  allies, 
their  only  friend,  Muhammad  Ah',  aided  by  six 
hundred  Englishmen,  was  closely  besieged  at  Tri- 


POSITION  HOPELESS. 


77 


chinopoli  by  nine  hundred  Frenchmen  and  the 
army  of  Chanda  Sahib.  The  position  seemed 
hopeless.  There  was,  however,  one  Englishman 
forthcoming  who,  by  his  reckless  daring,  dogged 
tenacity,  and  stubborn  perseverance,  not  only  suc- 
ceeded in  thwarting  the  diplomatic  ingenuity  by 
which  Dupleix  had  made  the  French  influence 
supreme  in  the  native  states  but  in  establishing,  for 
the  first  time,  the  prestige  of  the  English  in  India. 
This  man  was  the  ill-fated  Robert  Clive. 


V. 

robp:rt  CLIVE. 

CLIVE  was  born  on  the  29th  of  September,  1725, 
near  Market  Drayton  in  Shropshire.  Wayward  and 
reckless  as  a schoolboy,  he  early  showed  signs  of 
those  talents  which  he  afterwards  so  conspicuously 
exercised.  Legend  loves  to  tell  how  he  climbed  the 
high  steeple  of  Market  Drayton,  and  there,  to  terrify 
the  townspeople,  seated  himself  on  the  edge  of  a 
projecting  stone.  The  story  is  also  well  known  how 
he  levied  blackmail  on  the  shopkeepers,  threatening 
to  break  their  windows  unless  they  submitted  to  his 
demands  and  those  of  his  schoolfellows. 

In  the  year  1744  he  landed  at  Madras  as  a writer 
in  the  service  of  the  East  India  Company.  There 
he  listened  in  gloomy  silence  to  the  empty  talk  of 
his  brother  writers  whose  lives  were  wasted  in  idle 
folly  and  reckless  dissipation.  In  bitter  grief  he 
wrote  home,  “ I have  not  enjoyed  one  happy  day 
since  I left  my  native  land.”  At  length  his  proud 
spirit,  finding  no  relief  from  its  surging  thoughts, 
sought  refuge  from  inaction  in  death.  The  pistol, 
well  loaded  and  primed,  was  twice  pointed  at  his 

78 


CLIVE  I.V  MADRAS. 


79 


head,  twice  it  missed  fire  ; a moment  afterwards  a 
friend  entered  the  room,  and  seeing  Clive  sitting 


ROBERT,  LORD  CLIVE. 

{From  Malcolm’s  “ Life  of  Clive.") 

morose  and  silent,  raised  the  pistol  and  discharged 
it  from  the  window  at  the  first  touch  of  the  triorer. 

oo 

From  that  day  Clive  woke  to  life.  He  was  well 


8o 


ROBERT  CLIVE. 


assured  in  his  own  mind  that  he  had  been  spared  for 
some  great  purpose,  to  take  some  great  part  in  the 
history  of  his  people — a part  he  afterwards  played  with 
a recklessness  which  can  only  be  accounted  for  on  the 
supposition  that  he  believed  he  bore  a charmed  life. 
In  Malcolm’s  “ Life  of  Clive  ” it  is  told  how,  during  a 
duel  with  an  officer  whom  he  had  accused  of  cheating 
at  cards,  he  missed  his  antagonist,  who  thereupon 
advanced,  and  holding  his  pistol  to  Clive’s  head 
threatened  to  fire  unless  an  apology  was  at  once 

made.  “ Fire  and  be  d d,”  said  Clive ; “ I said 

you  cheated,  and  I say  so  still.” 

During  the  siege  of  Pondicherry,  having  obtained  a 
temporary  commission  as  ensign,  he  greatly  distin- 
guished himself,  but  on  the  peace  of  Aix-la-Chapelle 
had  to  return  to  the  uncongenial  employment  of 
measuring  cloth  and  checking  office  accounts.  A 
welcome  relief  soon  came.  The  native  ruler  of 
Tanjore,  Raja  Sahuji,  being  deposed,  appealed  to  the 
English  to  reinstate  him.  As  a reward  for  this  service 
he  offered  to  bear  all  the  expenses  of  the  war  and  on 
reinstatement  to  surrender  to  the  Company  the  fort 
and  lands  around  Devikota.  The  English  failed  in 
their  efforts  to  restore  Sahuji ; still,  they  determined  to 
have  their  promised  reward.  Major  Lawrence,  with 
six  ships,  fifteen  hundred  native  troops  and  eight 
hundred  Europeans,  sailed  up  the  Coleroon  and 
having  breached  the  fort  directed  Clive,  who  had 
again  obtained  a temporary  commission  as  lieutenant, 
to  advance  with  the  native  troops  and  thirty-four 
Europeans  across  a deep  rivulet  to  storm  the  breach 
and  capture  the  fort.  Clive  charged  at  the  head  of 


TRICHINOPOLI. 


8l 


his  troops;  the  sepoys  held  back,  and  of  the  Europeans 
twenty-six  were  cut  to  pieces  by  the  enemy’s  horse- 
men. Clive,  however,  escaped,  having,  in  the  words 
of  Lawrence,  behaved  with  “a  cool  courage  and  a 
presence  of  mind  which  never  left  him  in  the  greatest 
danger.  Born  a soldier,  for  without  a military 
education  of  any  sort  or  much  conversing  with  any  of 
the  profession,  from  his  judgment  and  good  sense,  he 
led  an  army  like  an  experienced  officer  and  brave 
soldier.” 

The  fort  was  afterwards  taken  and  with  the  sur- 
rounding lands,  which  brought  in  a revenue  of  36,000 
rupees,  given  over  to  the  Company. 

Clive  was  next  directed  to  proceed  from  Madras 
with  one  hundred  English  and  fifty  sepoys,  to  the 
relief  of  the  force  at  Trichinopoli  where  Muhammad 
Ah',  was  hemmed  in  by  the  French  and  the  army  of 
Chanda  Sahib.  For  this  duty  Clive  was  nominated 
by  the  Governor,  Mr.  Saunders,  the  order  in  Council 
stating,  “ We  will  give  him  (Mr.  Robert  Clive)  a brevet 
to  entitle  him  to  the  rank  of  Captain,  as  he  was  an 
officer  at  the  siege  of  Pondicherry  and  almost  the 
whole  time  of  the  war  distinguished  himself  on  many 
occasions,  it  is  conceived  that  this  officer  may  be  of 
some  service.” 

The  genius  of  Clive  shone  ever  brightest  in  times 
of  extreme  danger  and  in  situations  where  others 
might  well  deem  all  was  lost,  when  by  a clear  and 
quick  perception  of  all  surrounding  facts  he  rapidly 
evolved  plans  for  safety  or  victory  which  his  calm 
courage  and  inflexible  determination  sooner  or  later 
enabled  him  to  carry  into  execution.  He  saw  that  the 

7 


FORT  OF  ARGOT. 

(From  “ History  of  Military  Transactions  in  Indostan. 


DEFENCE  OF  ARCOT. 


83 


situation  at  Trichinopoli  was  hopeless,  but  he  noticed 
that  Chanda  Sahib,  in  over-eagerness  to  crush  the 
Engl  ish,  had  summoned  all  the  troops  from  the 
capital  at  Arcot,  leaving  its  weak  fortifications  de- 
fended by  only  1,100  sepoys.  Clive  at  once  deter- 
mined to  make  a bold  dash  for  the  capture  of  Arcot, 
intending  to  hold  it  until  Chanda  Sahib  and  the 
French  should  be  compelled  to  come  to  its  rescue 
and  raise  the  siege  of  Trichinopoli.  Hurrying  back 
to  Madras,  he  persuaded  the  Governor  to  place  at 
his  disposal  all  the  available  troops,  two  hundred 
English  and  three  hundred  sepoys,  with  whom  and 
three  small  guns  he  set  out  on  his  heroic  enter- 
prise. 

At  Arcot,  sixty-nine  miles  from  Madras,  consterna- 
tion reigned.  Travellers  brought  in  word  that  Clive 
and  the  English  soldiers  were  advancing  ; that  they 
had  been  seen  marching  unconcerned  through  a 
fearful  storm  of  thunder,  rain,  and  lightning.  On 
receipt  of  the  news  the  garrison  fled,  leaving  the 
fort  to  Clive  and  his  small  band  of  Europeans  and 
sepoys.  For  fifty  days  Clive  held  out  against  the 
allied  troops  sent  against  him.  He  repelled  assault 
after  assault ; he  led  charges  to  drive  the  enemy 
from  their  advanced  entrenchments ; he  even  marched 
out  to  protect  some  new  guns  coming  to  his  aid 
from  Madras.  The  sepoys,  in  this  memorable  de- 
fence of  the  fort  of  Arcot,  stood  side  by  side  with 
the  English  soldiers  to  whom  they  gave  their  scanty 
portion  of  boiled  rice,  saying  that  they  could  live 
on  the  water  in  which  it  had  been  boiled. 

The  brilliant  stratagem  conceived  by  the  master- 


84 


ROBERT  CLIVE. 


mind  of  Clive  succeeded  : Chanda  Sahib  and  his 
French  allies  were  obliged  to  send  troops  to  aid  in 
the  siege  of  Arcot,  thereby  weakening  the  forces 
before  Trichinopoli  and  infusing  fresh  courage  into 
Muhammad  All  and  his  dispirited  supporters.  The 
fort  was  breached,  by  aid  of  the  newly  arrived  troops, 
and  Clive  was  left  with  but  eighty  Europeans  and 
one  hundred  and  thirty  sepoys  to  defend  the  dis- 
mantled walls  one  mile  in  circumference. 

On  November  14th  the  enemy,  intoxicated  with 
bhang  and  drunk  with  the  fury  of  their  religious 
fanaticism,  advanced  in  four  divisions  ; two  divisions 
headed  by  elephants  with  iron  plates  on  their  fore- 
heads to  break  in  the  gates,  two  divisions  to  mount 
the  breaches.  Clive  and  his  handful  of  heroes  fought 
for  their  lives  along  the  crumbling  walls.  From  post 
to  post  the}*  hurried,  driving  back  the  swarming  foe, 
Clive,  with  his  own  hands  working  the  guns,  at  one 
shot  clearing  seventy  men  off  a raft  on  which  they 
strove  to  cross  the  moat.  After  an  hour’s  fight  the 
besiegers  were  driven  back,  having  lost  four  hundred 
killed  and  wounded  in  their  attack,  while  of  the 
defenders  only  four  Europeans  and  two  sepoys  fell. 
Clive  was  reinforced  from  Fort  St.  David  with  two 
hundred  Europeans  and  seven  hundred  sepoys,  and 
at  once  marched  out  from  behind  his  ramparts, 
captured  the  fort  of  Timeri,  joined  a band  of  one 
thousand  Marathas  under  Morari  Rao,  and  fought  his 
first  decisive  battle  against  the  French  and  their 
allies,  beating  a force  double  his  own  in  numbers  at 
Arni,  seventeen  miles  south  of  Arcot.  He  then  drove 
the  French  from  Conjeveram,  reinforced  Arcot,  and 


KA  VER1PAK.  85 

returned  victorious  to  Fort  St.  David  to  receive  the 
congratulations  of  the  Governor  and  Council. 

The  French  and  their  allies  followed,  raiding  the 
country  up  to  St.  Thomas’  Mount,  but  when  Clive 
sallied  forth  against  them  from  Madras  at  the  head  of 
380  Europeans  and  1,000  sepoys,  with  three  field- 
pieces,  they  retreated  to  Kaveripak,  a village  lying 
ten  miles  east  of  Arcot.  There  they  concealed  their 
artillery  and  cavalry  in  a dense  grove  of  mango-trees 
by  the  side  of  the  main  road,  along  which  they  knew 
Clive  must  advance,  and  in  a deep  channel  on  the 
other  side  they  hid  away  their  infantry.  As  Clive 
and  his  troops  marched  leisurely  down  the  road,  in 
easy  confidence,  they  were  suddenly  met  by  a fire 
from  a battery  of  nine  guns,  which  swept  their  ranks 
at  not  more  than  250  yards’  distance. 

Clive,  undoubtedly,  over  and  over  again  led  his 
troops  with  reckless  carelessness  into  positions  such 
as  this,  from  which  nothing  but  his  own  genius,  which 
seemed  to  draw  inspiration  from  the  very  presence 
of  danger,  could  have  ever  extricated  them.  It  is 
easy  to  cavil  at  his  conduct  and  tell  the  tale  of 
disaster  that  might  have  followed  if  he  had  failed  ; 
but  fail  he  never  did,  for  with  a charmed  life  he 
faced  his  enemies  amid  the  smoke  and  hurry  of 
battle  with  the  same  cool  determination  with  which 
he  afterwards  faced  his  opponents  in  the  Council 
Ch?.mber. 

It  was  late  in  the  afternoon  when  Clive  and  his 
troops  marched  into  the  midst  of  their  enemies  at 
Kaveripak,  and  little  time  remained  for  action.  With 
a small  body  of  infantry  and  two  guns  he  held  back 


86 


ROBERT  CLIVE. 


the  enemy’s  cavalry,  directing  the  rest  of  his  troops 
to  seek  shelter  from  the  guns  in  the  water-channel 
by  the  roadside,  and  thence  keep  up  a fire  on  the 
French  infantry. 

For  two  hours  the  artillery  fire  continued,  the 
cavalry  repeatedly  charging  Clive’s  guns  and  bag- 
gage. At  length  it  was  discovered  that  the  French 
had  neglected  to  defend  the  back  of  the  grove  where 
their  guns  were  posted.  Clive  secretly  despatched 
two  hundred  Europeans  and  four  hundred  sepoys  to 
within  thirty  yards  of  the  French  battery,  whence  they 
poured  in  a volley  among  the  gunners,  who  fled, 
leaving  their  guns  behind  them.  The  victory,  though 
decisive,  was  dearly  won  ; forty  of  Clive’s  European 
troops  and  thirty  sepoys  lay  dead.  The  newly  won 
prestige  of  the  French  in  the  south  had,  however, 
been  shattered.  Clive,  before  he  returned  to  Madras 
razed  to  the  ground  a city  Dupleix  had  founded 
and  called  after  his  own  name,  overturning  the 
triumphal  column  therein  erected,  on  which  was 
emblazoned  in  many  languages  a full  record  of  the 
French  victories. 

From  Trichinopoli  the  French,  heedless  of  the 
remonstrances  of  Dupleix,  retreated  to  the  neigh- 
bouring island  of  Srirangam,  leaving  Chanda  Sdhib 
to  his  fate.  To  cut  off  their  retreat  and  to  prevent 
reinforcements  reaching  them,  Clive  took  up  a posi- 
tion in  the  village  of  Samiaveram,  eleven  miles  north 
of  the  island,  where  now  the  French  were  practically 
isolated. 

On  the  night  of  April  14,  1752,  Clive,  wearied  from 
a long  day’s  operations  he  had  carried  out  in  order 


NIGHT  ATTACH  ON  CLIVE.  87 

to  prevent  a relieving  force  from  Pondicherry  break- 
ing through  the  English  and  joining  the  French,  lay 
down  to  sleep  in  a rest-house  near  the  entrance 
gateway  of  the  village  temple.  The  camp  was 
quiet  : the  English  soldiers,  Marathi  troopers,  and 
allied  sepoys  were  sleeping  uneasily  in  and  near  the 
temple,  while  close  at  hand  the  sentinels,  but  half 
awake,  paced  to  and  fro.  In  the  dead  of  night  seven 
hundred  of  the  enemy’s  sepoys  and  eighty  Euro- 
peans stole  silently  towards  the  camp,  guided  by  a 
band  of  deserters  from  the  English.  The  drowsy 
inquiries  of  the  sentinels  were  answered  by  whispers 
that  the  force  was  a relief  sent  from  Lawrence. 
Silently  making  their  way  to  the  front  of  the  temple 
gate,  the  enemy  first  gave  notice  of  their  presence  by 
pouring  volley  after  volley  amid  the  sleeping  soldiers. 
In  an  instant  the  camp  awoke  in  startled  surprise. 
Moans  from  the  dying  and  confused  cries  from  the 
awakened  soldiers  were  mingled  with  the  clatter  of 
arms  and  heavy  boom  of  the  enemy’s  muskets. 
Through  the  shed  where  Clive  lay  sleeping,  the  bullets 
flew ; a soldier  by  his  side  was  shot  dead,  and  a box 
at  the  foot  of  his  cot  was  shattered  to  fragments. 
Deeming  that  the  firing  close  at  hand  came  from 
his  own  troops,  blindly"  repelling  some  imaginary 
attack,  Clive  rushed  forward  and  beat  down  the 
guns  with  his  hands,  commanding  the  firing  to 
cease.  He  was  attacked  by"  six  Frenchmen,  seriously 
wounded,  and  summoned  to  surrender.  Wounded 
and  faint  though  he  was,  he  grasped  the  situation  in 
a moment.  Raising  himself,  he  cried  out  to  the 
French  soldiers  that  they"  were  surrounded,  and 


88 


ROBERT  CLIVE. 


ordered  them  to  surrender.  His  tone  and  manner 
carried  instant  conviction  ; the  six  Frenchmen  in  the 
confusion  gave  up  their  arms.  The  native  troops 
broke  away  to  fly  from  the  vengeance  of  the  fierce 
Marathas,  who  were  afterwards  heard  to  declare  that 
not  a single  sepoy  who  entered  the  camp  that  night 
escaped  with  his  life.  The  remaining  French  soldiers 
with  the  European  deserters  sought  refuge  in  the 
temple  where,  as  it  was  found  impossible  to  dislodge 
them,  they  were  shut  in  till  dawn.  In  the  morning 
the  temple  was  stormed,  and  after  the  French  had 
lost  twelve  men,  Clive,  weak  and  faint  from  his 
wound,  was  led  to  the  temple  gate  by  two  sergeants 
who  stood  by  his  side  supporting  him.  As  he  stood 
swaying  to  and  fro  offering  terms  one  of  the  deserters 
fired  ; the  shot  missed  Clive,  slaying  the  two  ser- 
geants who  were  standing  slightly  in  front.  Horrified 
by  the  treacherous  act  the  French  threw  down  their 
arms  and  capitulated. 

Shortly  after  the  entire  French  troops  under 
Captain  Law  surrendered  to  Lawrence,  and  the  re- 
lieving force  under  d’Auteuil  to  Clive,  who,  now 
completely  broken  down  by  the  arduous  campaign, 
returned  home  in  1753. 

Dupleix  remained  still  striving  to  re-establish  the 
French  influence  with  the  native  rulers  of  the  south. 
But  the  French  Company  realised  not  the  value  of  his 
acquisitions,  and  knew  not  the  meaning  of  his  policy. 
Traders  they  were,  and  their  profits  were  now  falling 
fast.  Acquisition  of  territory  or  bearing  of  Eastern 
titles  by  their  Governors  in  the  East  had  for  them  no 
interest.  In  vain  Dupleix  pleaded  for  time  ; in  vain, 


DUPLEIX  AND  CLIVE. 


89 


in  order  to  carry  out  his  designs,  he  expended  the 
wealth  he  had  accumulated  by  private  trade  or  gained 
from  foreign  princes  ; he  was  ignominiously  recalled, 
and  his  successor  Godeheu,  who  arrived  in  1754,  re- 
signed the  exclusive  right  over  the  rich  and  fertile 
Northern  Circars  which  Dupleix  had  succeeded  in 
gaining  for  the  French,  and  gave  up  all  claim  to  the 
sounding  titles  so  eagerly  sought  after  by  his  prede- 
cessor. Insulted  and  laughed  at  at  home  as  an 
impostor  when  he  pressed  his  claims  for  the  return 
of  the  money  he  had  spent  in  the  service  of  his 
country,  Dupleix  sank  deeper  and  deeper  into  poverty 
and  dejection,  until  at  length,  three  days  before  his 
death,  he  wrote  in  the  bitterness  of  despair,  “ My 
sendees  are  treated  as  fables,  my  demand  is  denounced 
as  ridiculous  ; I am  treated  as  the  vilest  of  mankind  ; 
I am  in  the  most  deplorable  indigence.” 

Clive,  on  the  other  hand,  had  been  feasted  and 
toasted  by  the  Court  of  Directors,  and  presented 
with  a diamond-hilted  sword,  “ as  a token  of  their 
esteem  and  of  their  sense  of  his  singular  services,” 
which  he  refused  to  receive  until  his  old  friend  and 
commander,  Major  Lawrence,  was  also  likewise 
honoured. 

Clive  soon  grew  tired  of  an  inactive  life  in  England. 
The  excitement  of  a contested  election  led  to  nothing 
but  loss  of  time,  patience,  and  money,  so  in  1755  he 
sailed  again  for  India,  having  accepted  a commission 
of  lieutenant-colonel  in  the  British  Army,  the  ap- 
pointment of  Governor  of  Fort  St.  David  and  the 
succession  to  the  Governorship  of  Madras.  He 
reached  Fort  St.  David  on  the  20th  of  June,  1756, 


90 


ROBERT  CLIVE. 


the  day  of  the  dire  tragedy  of  the  Black  Hole  of 
Calcutta. 

Sirdj-ud-Daulfi,  Viceroy  of  Bengal,  Behar,  and 
Orissa,  had  long  watched,  with  growing  distrust  and 
haughty  anger,  the  dominant  position  gradually 
acquired  by  the  English  and  French  traders  in  his 
dominions.  Forts  had  been  built,  fortifications  raised, 
refuge  given  to  those  flying  from  his  wrath  or  cupidity, 
while  round  Calcutta  the  famed  Marathd  ditch  had 
been  laboriously  dug,  though  never  completed,  to 
keep  out  the  Marathas,  who  levied  chauth  from  all 
villages  in  reach  of  their  flying  cohorts. 

Not  satisfied  with  the  assurances  given  him  by  the 
Governor  of  Calcutta  that  the  new  fortifications  had 
not  been  raised  against  the  native  powers,  but  in  view 
of  the  coming  war  between  France  and  England, 
Siraj-ud-Daula  first  captured  the  English  factory  at 
Kdsimbazar,  and  then  marched  for  Calcutta  at  the 
head  of  his  forces,  followed  by  the  robber-bands  in  the 
neighbourhood  to  the  number  of  some  forty  thousand, 
all  eager  to  share  in  the  sack  of  the  rich  city  of  the 
English  traders.  Of  riches  there  were  but  little  at 
Calcutta,  and  of  defences  virtually  none.  There  were 
obsolete  shells  and  fuses,  dismantled  guns,  walls  too 
weak  to  support  cannon,  and  warehouses  built  in  the 
line  of  fire  to  the  south.  The  garrison  consisted  of 
one  hundred  and  eighty  men,  of  whom  only  one-third 
were  Europeans.  Gallantly  the  handful  of  English- 
men set  to  work  to  erect  outlying  batteries,  and  dig 
trenches,  they  were  even  reduced  to  seek  ammunition 
and  help  from  the  French  and  Dutch  factories — an 
aid,  however,  withheld.  The  women  and  children 


CAPTURE  OF  CALCUTTA. 


91 


took  refuge  in  the  ships  lying  in  the  river,  two 
Members  of  Council,  officers  of  militia  earning  un- 
dying infamy,  and  subsequent  dismissal  for  desertion, 
by  volunteering  to  accompany  the  fugitives  and  re- 
fusing to  return  even  when  taunted  for  their  cowardice. 
The  Commandant,  Captain  Minchin,  likewise  fled, 
accompanied  by  the  Governor,  Mr.  Drake,  who  un- 
luckily escaped  the  parting  shots  fired  after  him  by 
his  comrades,  with  whom  he  lacked  courage  to  re- 
main as  they  slowly  turned  to  meet  the  foe.  Well 
might  it  be  imagined  that  history  could  never  hand 
down  a tale  of  fouler  shame  and  infamy.  So  might 
the  garrison  have  thought  were  it  not  for  the  fact 
that  as  they  turned,  with  despair  in  their  hearts,  to 
meet  their  swarming  foes,  they  saw  the  last  of  the 
ships  sail  out  of  sight,  Captain  Young  of  the 
Dodolay  finding  courage  sufficient  to  declare  that 
it  would  be  dangerous  to  wait  near  or  even  to 
send  a boat  to  take  off  his  countrymen.  Prayed  to 
return  and  bear  away  the  wounded,  he  refused ; 
prayed  to  send  a boat  with  ammunition,  for  that  in 
the  fort  was  all  but  exhausted,  he  refused  ; prayed  to 
throw  a cable  to  the  Prince  George , which  had 
stranded  in  endeavouring  to  return,  he  refused,  saying 
he  needed  all  he  had  for  the  safety  of  his  own  ship. 
For  five  days  the  garrison,  headed  by  the  famed 
civilian,  Mr.  Holwell,  held  out  until  out  of  one 
hundred  and  seventy  men  fifty  were  wounded  and 
twenty-five  killed.  At  length  Holwell  had  to  sur- 
render, delivering  up  his  sword  to  Siraj-ud-Daula  on 
a promise  that  no  harm  should  befall  his  followers. 

To  those  who  have  not  lived  in  the  burning  plains 


92 


ROBERT  CLIVE. 


of  India  during  the  long  months,  when  the  brazen 
rays  of  the  sun  pass  away  towards  the  close  of  evening, 
and  the  blasts  of  the  hot  winds  cease,  only  to  be 
succeeded  by  the  dead,  stifling  heat  when  even  the 
birds  fall  to  the  ground  gasping  with  open  beaks  for 
breath,  no  pen  can  ever  convey  an  idea  of  the  suffer- 
ings of  those  who  died  in  agony  on  that  night  of  the 
20th  of  June,  when  Calcutta  was  surrendered  to 
Siraj-ud-Daula. 

As  the  night  approached  the  prisoners,  one  hundred 
and  forty-six  in  number,  all  wearied  and  many 
wounded,  were  gathered  together  in  the  fort.  In  the 
guard-room  a space  of  eighteen  feet  square  had  been 
walled  in  to  form  a prison  cell.  It  had  but  two  small 
iron-barred  windows,  opening  into  a low  verandah. 
Into  this  cell,  known  to  history  as  “The  Black  Hole 
of  Calcutta,”  the  prisoners  were  driven  at  the  point 
of  the  bayonet. 

Holwell  has  told  the  story  of  that  night,  which, 
once  read,  ever  haunts  the  memory,  like  the  wild 
imaginings  of  a fevered  nightmare,  with  vivid  pictures 
of  unutterable  woes  and  fearful  sufferings. 

The  first  words  of  Holwell,  advising  the  struggling 
crowd  to  make  more  room  by  removing  their  gar- 
ments, were  drowned  by  the  cries  of  the  weak  and 
moans  of  the  wounded.  After  some  time  the  com- 
mand to  sit  down  was  obeyed,  but  many  had  no 
strength  to  rise  again,  and  were  soon  trampled  to 
death.  With  frantic  shrieks  the  living  cried  for  air ; 
with  frenzied  struggles  they  fought  for  the  water  their 
guards  held  out,  the  few  drops  that  reached  their 
parched  lips  but  increasing  their  raging  thirst.  The 


BLACK  HOLE  OF  CALCUTTA. 


93 


guards  came  close  with  lanterns  to  watch  the  scene,  but 
no  words  of  foul  abuse  could  rouse  them  to  shoot  their 
victims,  nor  premises  of  reward  induce  them  to  unbar 
the  door,  or  even  remove  the  dying.  The  narrative 
ends  before  the  full  tale  of  suffering  was  complete,  for 
the  narrator,  Mr.  Hoi  well,  tells  nothing  after  2 a.m., 
when  he  wrote,  “ I found  a stupor  coming  on  apace, 
and  laid  myself  down  by  that  gallant  old  man,  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Jervas  Bellamy,  who  lay  dead  with  his  son 
the  Lieutenant  hand  in  hand.” 

In  the  morning  twenty-three  survivors  were  carried 
out  of  the  “ Black  Hole,”  amongst  them  one  woman, 
Mrs.  Carey,  whose  husband  had  perished.  From  out 
the  whole  dark  history  there  comes  but  one  ray  of 
consolation,  for,  from  the  evidence  collected  by  Dr. 
Busteed  in  his  “ Echoes  from  Old  Calcutta,”  it  is  clear 
that  Mrs.  Carey  was  spared  the  ignominous  fate  it 
was  long  believed  she  suffered,  as  narrated  by  Hol- 
well,  Orme,  Macaulay,  and  other  historians.  It  seems 
now  certain  that  she  was  released  and  lived  in  honour, 
down  to  the  year  1801,  among  her  own  people. 

It  is  possible  that  Siraj-ud-Daula  may  have  known 
nothing  of  the  events  that  transpired  during  the 
night,  but  when  details  of  the  slaughter  were  brought 
to  him  in  the  morning  he  displayed  neither  emotion 
nor  regret,  venting  his  rage  at  finding  but  ,£5,000  in 
the  Treasury  by  ordering  that  Holwell  and  the 
European  survivors  should  at  once  quit  Calcutta 
under  pain  of  having  their  noses  and  ears  cut  off. 

On  news  of  the  disaster  reaching  Madras  Clive  was 
directed  to  hasten  with  all  available  troops  to  Bengal, 
accompanied  by  the  English  fleet  under  Admiral 


94 


ROBERT  CLIVE. 


Watson.  It  was  not  until  the  end  of  the  year  that 
the  ships  sailed  up  the  Hugh'  and  landed  Clive  and 
his  troops  at  Maiapur.  After  a weary  march  of 
fifteen  hours  over  swampy  land  the  force  arrived 
late  at  night  within  one  mile  and  a half  of  the  fort 
of  Baj-baj,  twelve  miles  from  Calcutta,  where,  weary 
and  tired,  they  lay  down  to  rest  in  the  bed  of  a 
dried-up  lake,  intending  to  attack  the  fort  in  the 
morning.  They  were  here  surrounded  by  the  enemy, 
who,  as  soon  as  all  were  sleeping  in  the  camp,  opened 
fire  and  seized  the  guns,  which  had  been  left  unpro- 
tected and  unguarded.  Clive  had  again,  with  careless 
indifference,  marched  straight  into  the  midst  of  the 
enemy,  but  again  his  presence  of  mind  saved  him. 
Advancing  his  soldiers  the  guns  were  recovered,  the 
foe  driven  off  with  heavy  slaughter,  and  in  his  own 
words,  “ the  skirmish  in  all  lasted  about  half  an  hour, 
in  which  time  ...  9 private  men  were  killed  and  8 
wounded.”  In  the  meantime  the  guns  from  Admiral 
Watson’s  fleet  breached  the  fort,  and  a body  of  sailors 
landed  to  co-operate  with  Clive.  One  of  the  sailors, 
named  Strahan,  being  intoxicated,  lost  his  way,  and 
stumbled  about  until  he  reached  the  fort,  which  he 
entered  through  one  of  the  breaches.  Finding  him- 
self alone  in  the  midst  of  the  garrison  he  fired  his 
pistol,  and  cut  right  and  left  with  his  cutlass,  crying 
lustily  that  he  had  captured  the  fort.  The  sepoys, 
deeming  they  had  been  surprised,  seized  their  arms, 
fired  random  shots  in  all  directions,  and  then  fled. 
The  English  troops,  hearing  the  strange  commotion, 
came  to  the  rescue  and  took  possession  of  the  fort. 
So  the  night  of  strange  accidents  closed,  and,  on 


CLIVE  AT  CALCUTTA. 


95 


Strahan  being  ordered  up  for  punishment  in  the 
morning,  he  indignantly  swore  that  if  he  was  flogged, 
he  would  never  again  so  long  as  he  lived,  take  another 
fort  by  himself. 

The  fort  at  Hugh'  was  captured  by  Captain  Eyre 
Coote  with  a loss  of  two  Europeans  and  ten  sepoys, 
after  which  the  avenging  force  raided  the  surrounding 
country,  returning  to  Calcutta  with  a booty  of  some 
£ 1 50,000. 

Siraj-ud-Daula,  raging  at  the  insult  offered  to  his 
power,  at  once  collected  together  troops  to  the  number 
of  40,000,  and  marched  again  towards  Calcutta,  his 
course  being  marked  by  the  smoke  and  flames  from 
the  villages  his  followers  burned  and  plundered. 
Clive  collected  together  all  his  troops — 650  European 
soldiers,  600  sailors  from  Watson’s  fleet,  14  field- 
pieces,  with  1 50  European  artillery,  and  800  sepoys — 
and  started  on  February  4th,  at  three  o’clock  in  the 
morning  to  drive  Siraj-ud-Daula’s  immense  army  from 
before  Calcutta.  In  a dense  fog  he  marched  on,  his 
troops  pausing  now  and  then  to  fire,  they  knew  not 
where,  to  their  right  and  left.  A rocket  from  the 
enemy’s  outposts  exploded  the  ammunition  in  the 
cartouche-box  of  one  of  Clive’s  sepoys,  and  was 
followed  by  explosions  from  the  ammunition  of  other 
sepoys  close  by.  Still  they  pressed  on,  the  guns  in 
the  rear  mowing  down  their  own  troops  in  front, 
none  recognising  friend  or  foe  in  the  dense  mist. 
The  cavalry  of  Siraj-ud-Daula,  riding  close  up  to 
Clive’s  troops,  broke  back  when  met  by  a volley  fired 
at  random  in  the  direction  of  the  charging  horses. 
In  the  early  morning,  on  the  fog  rising,  Clive  retired 


9 6 


ROBERT  CLIVE. 


and  reached  Calcutta  towards  noon,  having  lost  two 
field-pieces,  twenty  Europeans,  and  one  hundred 
sepoys  in  his  daring  assault. 

The  enemy  was  thoroughly  cowed.  Siraj-ud-Daula 
withdrew  his  troops  and  sued  for  peace,  for  not  only 
did  he  fear  the  next  move  of  Clive,  but  from  the 
north  came  the  dreaded  news  that  the  Afghans, 
under  Ahmad  Shah  Durani,  had  invaded  the  land 
and  captured  the  imperial  city  of  Delhi. 

Clive  was  nothing  loth  to  enter  into  a truce.  War 
had  been  declared  between  Great  Britain  and  France, 
and  he  was  anxious  to  obtain  the  aid  and  consent  of 
Siraj-ud-Daula  to  an  attack  on  the  French  settlement 
at  Chandranagar.  A treaty  of  alliance,  offensive  and 
defensive,  against  all  common  foes,  was  accordingly 
entered  into.  Siraj-ud-Daula  agreed  to  give  up  all 
the  factories  and  property'  he  had  taken.  The 
Company  was  granted  permission  to  fortify  Calcutta, 
to  coin  money'  at  their  own  mint,  and  to  carry  their 
merchandise  through  native  territory'  without  pay'ment 
of  tolls. 

The  treaty'  signed,  the  Viceroy  wavered  in  his 
promise  to  aid  the  English  in  their  attack  on  the 
French  settlement.  The  fame  of  the  troops  of  Bussy 
had  reached  his  ears,  and  it  was  whispered  abroad 
that  a great  French  army  was  advancing  from 
Haidarabad  to  drive  the  English  out  of  India. 

Admiral  Watson  was,  however,  not  to  be  thus 
trifled  with.  He  at  once  demanded  that  Siraj-ud- 
Daula  should  keep  his  word,  else,  as  he  wrote,  “ I 
will  kindle  such  a flame  in  y'our  country'  as  all  the 
water  of  the  Ganges  shall  not  be  able  to  extinguish. 


FRENCH  LOSSES. 


97 


Farewell  ; remember  that  he  who  promises  you  this 
never  yet  broke  his  word  with  you  or  with  any  man 
whatsoever.” 

With  or  without  the  consent  or  aid  of  the  Viceroy 
it  was  at  length  decided  that  Chandranagar  should 
be  attacked  before  Bussy  could  come  to  the  rescue. 

At  Chandranagar  the  French  had  but  a feeble 
garrison  of  146  Europeans  and  300  sepoys,  supple- 
mented by  300  civilians  and  sailors  hastily  armed. 
Against  these  Admiral  Watson  brought  up  his  fleet — 
The  Kent , of  64  guns  ; The  Tiger , of  60  guns ; and 
The  Salisbury,  of  50  guns — while  Clive  advanced  by 
land  with  700  Europeans,  1,500  sepoys  and  artillery. 
Defence  was  not  long  possible ; treachery  showed 
Watson  a safe  passage  for  his  ships,  the  bastions 
were  swept  of  their  defenders,  100  of  the  garrison 
were  slain,  and  on  the  23rd  of  March,  1757,  the 
fort  surrendered. 

This  success  of  the  English  so  roused  the  fear  and 
anger  of  Siraj-ud-Daula,  that  he  wrote  to  Bussy, 
praying  him  to  march  from  the  Deccan  to  his  aid. 
The  letters  fell  into  the  hands  of  Clive,  who  summed 
up  the  situation  by  declaring  “ the  Nawab  is  a villain 
and  cannot  be  trusted  ; he  must  be  overset  or  we 
must  fall.” 

Mir  Jafar,  the  Commander  of  Siraj-ud-Daula’s 
force,  was  bribed  with  the  promise  of  being  made 
Viceroy  if  he  could  succeed  in  bringing  over  his 
troops  to  the  side  of  the  English  and  aid  in  deposing 
Siraj-ud-Daula. 

The  contemplated  treachery  of  Mir  Jafar  was 
known  to  many,  but  the  secret  was  well  kept,  Amin- 

8 


98 


ROBERT  CLIVE. 


chand,  a wealthy  Hindu  banker,  being  the  chief  agent 
in  carrying  out  the  negotiations.  At  the  last  moment 
Clive  found  his  carefully  laid  plans  likely  to  fail,  for 
Aminchand  suddenly  declared  that  he  would  reveal 
the  plot  to  Siraj-ud-Daula  unless  he  received  a 
promise  that  his  share  of  the  spoil  should  be  5 per 
cent,  on  all  the  treasures  at  Murshidabad,  or  a sum 
of  30  lakhs  of  rupees,  more  than  ,£300,000.  Clive 
bought  the  silence  of  Aminchand,  promising  to  give 
him  all  he  desired,  and  to  sign  a deed  to  that 
effect.  To  Watts,  Resident  at  the  Viceroy’s  Court, 
and  chief  agent  in  the  revolution,  Clive  wrote : 
“Omichund  is  the  greatest  villain  upon  earth  . . . 
to  counter-plot  the  scoundrel  and  at  the  same  time  to 
give  him  no  room  to  suspect  our  intentions  enclosed 
you  will  receive  two  forms  of  agreement,  the  one  real 
to  be  strictly  kept  by  us,  the  other  fictitious.”  The 
real  treaty,  signed  by  all  the  allies,  was  on  white 
paper,  the  fictitious  treaty  was  on  red  paper,  similarly 
signed,  with  the  exception  of  the  signature  of 
Admiral  Watson,  which  was  forged  when  he  bluntly 
refused  to  have  anything  to  do  with  the  intrigue. 
Clive,  when  afterwards  asked  before  the  House  of 
Commons  to  defend  his  action,  haughtily  replied  that 
he  thought  “ it  warrantable  in  such  a case,  and  would 
do  it  again  one  hundred  times.”  The  announcement 
of  the  forgery  was,  after  the  battle,  made  by  Clive  in 
the  following  words  : “ Omichund,  the  red  paper  is  a 
trick  ; you  are  to  have  nothing.” 

In  after  years,  when  the  Duke  of  Wellington 
traced  out  on  the  field  of  Plassey  the  lines  on  which 
was  fought  the  first  great  battle,  establishing  the 


PLASSE  Y. 


99 


supremacy  of  the  English  in  India,  his  admiration 
for  the  genius  of  Clive  must  have  been  mingled 
with  feelings  of  sorrow  that  the  fame  of  the  great 
General  would  ever  be  tarnished  by  that  one  act  of 
calculated  deceit. 

At  Plassey  Clive  stood  with  nine  small  guns  and  a 
band  of  3,000  men,  of  whom  2,100  were  native  troops, 
surrounded  by  35,000  infantry,  15,000  cavalry  of 
fierce  and  warlike  Pathans,  53  pieces  of  artillery,  and 
a body  of  Frenchmen  forty  to  fifty  in  number.  Clive 
paused  long  before  venturing  to  attack,  for  he  knew 
that  if  Mir  Jafar  again  turned  traitor  and  joined 
his  forces  to  those  of  the  Viceroy  none  among  the 
British  troops  would  escape  to  tell  the  tale. 

The  danger  of  the  situation  is  seen  from  the  fact 
that  Clive  for  the  first  time  called  together  a council 
of  his  officers,  to  whom  he  proposed  the  question, 
“ Whether,  in  our  present  position,  without  assistance, 
and  on  our  own  bottom,  it  would  be  prudent  to 
attack,  or  whether  we  should  wait  till  joined  by  some 
native  power  ? ” 

Clive’s  own  name  heads  the  list  of  those  who  voted 
for  no  further  advance,  Eyre  Coote’s  name  heads  the 
list  of  those  who  voted  for  immediate  attack.  When 
the  Council  broke  up  Clive  wandered  apart  by  him- 
self, and  after  some  hours  spent  in  solitary  meditation 
beneath  the  shade  of  the  trees  by  the  river  bank  he 
returned  to  tell  his  officers  to  prepare  their  men  to 
cross  the  river  on  the  following  morning,  for  he  had 
determined  to  risk  all  in  one  great  effort  to  establish 
the  supremacy  of  the  English  in  India.  On  the  23rd 
of  June,  1757,  as  the  first  rays  of  the  hot  morning 


100 


ROBERT  CI.IVE. 


sun  blazed  across  the  wide  field  of  Plassey,  Clive 
ascended  to  the  roof  of  a small  hunting  hut  in  which 
he  had  lain  without  sleep  during  the  night.  To  his 
right  were  the  troops  of  the  wavering  traitor,  Mir 
Jafar,  now  biding  his  time  to  cast  in  his  lot  with  the 
side  likely  to  win.  Should  Clive  be  defeated,  Mir 
Jafar’s  cavalry  were  ready  to  sweep  down  on  his  rear 
and  pillage  his  baggage  ; should  the  hosts  of  Siraj- 
ud-Daula  fall  back,  the  troops  of  his  trusted  Com- 
mander-in-Chief  would  range  themselves  beside  those 
of  Clive.  From  where  stood  the  camp  of  Mir  Jafar, 
38,000  of  the  enemy,  with  the  French  and  their  guns 
in  the  centre,  stretched  in  a semicircle  round  the 
soldiers  of  Clive,  still  sleeping  quietly  in  a large 
mango  grove  guarded  by  a ditch  and  strong  mud 
banks.  As  Clive  watched  the  scene  in  front  of  him 
the  first  shot  from  the  French  guns  woke  the  English 
and  laid  low  two  of  their  number.  Soon  the  heavy 
artillery  of  the  enemy  was  in  full  play,  answered  back 
by  Clive’s  six  light  guns.  Eagerly  the  serried  masses 
of  Siraj-ud-Daula  pressed  forward  to  drive  the 
handful  of  English  into  the  deep  Bhagfrathi,  but 
Clive’s  soldiers  lay  safe  behind  the  shelter  of  the  mud 
banks,  and  the  shells  and  shot  sang  harmlessly  over- 
head amid  the  branches  of  the  mango-trees.  By 
noon  the  rain  came  down  in  torrents,  and  the  enemy’s 
ammunition,  soaked  through  and  through,  was  ren- 
dered useless,  so  that  their  fire  gradually  slackened, 
while  Clive’s  guns  and  ammunition  had  been  covered 
up  and  kept  dry. 

Mir  Madan,  chief  of  the  native  cavalry,  loved  and 
trusted  by  Siraj-ud-Daula,  determined  in  one  brave 


PLASSEY. 


lOI 


effort  to  silence  the  English  gunners,  but  as  he 
charged  at  the  head  of  his  cavalry  he  fell  dead  before 
the  flying  grape-shot.  With  frantic  haste  Siraj-ud- 
Daula  gave  orders  for  the  troops  to  fall  back.  He 
called  Mir  Jafar  to  his  side,  told  him  of  his  loss, 
and  casting  his  turban  at  the  traitor’s  feet,  prayed 
him  to  fight  against  the  foreign  foe.  Mir  Jafar,  vow- 
ing that  he  would  bring  up  his  troops  and  defend 
his  chief,  hastened  away  to  send  word  to  Clive  to 
advance  and  win  the  day.  The  English  charged 
from  their  entrenchments,  taking  care  to  fire  now  and 
then  on  the  treacherous  troops  of  Mir  Jafar  to  make 
them  keep  their  distance.  By  five  o’clock  the  whole 
army  of  Siraj-ud-DauIa  was  in  full  retreat,  the  brave 
band  of  Frenchmen  in  the  centre  standing  firm  until 
Clive  drove  them  from  their  position  and  captured 
their  guns.  The  Viceroy  fled,  leaving  behind  his 
wealth,  baggage,  cattle,  elephants,  and  artillery,  and 
five  hundred  of  his  troops  dead  and  wounded  on  the 
field. 

After  the  battle  of  Plassey,.  in  which  the  English 
lost  seven  Europeans  and  sixteen  sepoys,  Mir  Jafar 
presented  himself  to  receive  the  reward  of  his 
treachery.  As  the  English  soldiers  presented  arms 
he  started  back  in  alarm  at  the  rattle  of  the  muskets, 
but  his  coward  heart  took  courage  when  Clive 
advanced  and  saluted  him  as  Viceroy  of  Bengal, 
Behar,  and  Orissa. 

At  Murshidabad,  the  capital  of  the  Viceroy,  the 
rich  merchants  and  bankers  came  forward  and  bowed 
down  in  lowly  supplication  before  their  conquerors, 
praying  that  their  city  might  be  spared  the  horrors 


102 


ROBERT  CLIVE. 


of  rapine  and  plunder.  To  the  right  and  left  of  Clive 
was  stored  up  the  long-accumulated  wealth  of  the 
richest  provinces  of  India.  In  the  treasure-house 
of  Siraj-ud-Daula  gold  and  silver  were  heaped 
high.  The  custodians  came  forward  and  crowned 
Clive’s  head  with  jewels.  In  after  years,  when  he 
was  charged  before  the  House  of  Commons  with 
over-greed,  he  boldly  exclaimed,  “ By  God,  Mr. 
Chairman,  at  this  moment  I stand  astonished  at 
my  own  moderation  ! ” 

For  the  Company  he  claimed  the  right  to  hold  all 
the  lands  south  of  Calcutta,  882  square  miles,  on 
payment  of  the  usual  rent.  He  claimed  a sum  of 
10,000,000  rupees  as  compensation  for  previous  losses 
and  for  the  expenses  of  the  campaign.  For  those 
who  had  suffered  during  the  capture  of  Calcutta  by 
Siraj-ud-Daula  he  claimed  8,000,000  rupees.  For  the 
army  2,500,000  rupees,  for  the  navy  2,500,000  rupees, 
and  other  large  sums  for  the  Governor  and  Select 
Committee  at  Calcutta.  For  himself  he  demanded 
besides  280,000  rupees  as  Member  of  the  Committee, 
200,000  rupees  as  Commander-in-Chief,  and  1,600,000 
rupees  as  a private  donation — in  all,  2,080,000  rupees. 
Be  it  remembered  that  at  the  time  when  these  awards 
were  made  the  rupee  was  worth  two  shillings  and 
sixpence. 

Mir  Jafar,  who  had  put  Siraj-ud-Daula  cruelly  to 
death,  was  left  to  raise  these  sums  from  his  subjects 
as  best  he  could.  The  result  was  a rebellion,  to  quell 
which  Clive  was  called  on  for  aid,  and  in  return 
received  further  rights  for  the  Company.  It  was  not 
long  before  the  new  Viceroy  had  again  to  plead  for 


DUTCH  AXD  FRENCH. 


103 


the  assistance  of  the  Company’s  troops  in  repelling  a 
threatened  invasion  of  his  dominions  by  the  son  of 
the  Emperor  of  Delhi  and  the  Nawab  Wazfr  of  Oudh. 
In  return  Clive  was  granted  a right  to  retain  in  his 
own  hands  the  rent  of  the  lands  south  of  Calcutta 
which,  according  to  the  agreement  after  Plassey,  had 
been  annually  paid  by  the  English  to  the  Viceroy. 
By  this  agreement  Clive  virtually  became  landlord  to 
the  East  India  Company.  The  amount,  some  £30,000 
yearly,  was  paid  to  him  from  1765  until  his  death  in 
1774,  when  the  right  to  collect  and  keep  the  rent 
passed  to  the  Company. 

The  supremacy  of  the  Company  firmly  established 
in  Bengal,  the  richest  province  in  India,  needed 
but  to  be  maintained  and  supported  by  the  care- 
ful husbanding  of  the  resources  and  revenues  of 
the  newly-acquired  lands,  so  that  it  might  finally 
grow  powerful  enough  to  triumph  over  all  rivals.  The 
Dutch  still  had  their  settlement  at  Chinsurah,  twenty 
miles  above  Calcutta,  and  in  the  Deccan  the  French 
under  Bussy  supported  the  Nizam,  or  Viceroy,  Salabat 
Jang,  the  revenues  of  the  “ Northern  Circars,”  or 
districts  of  Ganjam,  Vizagapatam,  Godavari,  and 
Kistna,  some  seventeen  thousand  square  miles  in 
extent,  having  been  assigned  to  them  for  the  main- 
tenance of  their  troops. 

On  Bussy  being  summoned  south  for  the  purpose 
of  joining  in  a French  attack  on  Madras,  Clive 
entered  into  an  alliance  with  the  local  Raja  of 
Vizianagram,  and  sent  a force  under  Colonel  Forde, 
to  the  Northern  Circars.  Masulipatam  fell,  position 
after  position  was  speedily  captured,  and  the  French 


104 


ROBERT  CLIVE. 


driven  out  of  the  Northern  Circars  and  deprived  of 
their  main  source  of  revenue. 

The  Dutch  at  Chinsurah,  finding  Clive’s  forces 
weakened  by  the  absence  of  Forde  and  his  troops, 
demanded  that  their  ships  should  be  allowed  to  pass 
Calcutta  without  being  searched  and  placed  under 
the  charge  of  an  English  pilot  as  was  the  custom, 
and  that  the  trade  in  saltpetre,  then  kept  exclusively 
in  the  hands  of  the  English  Company,  should  be 
thrown  open.  Receiving  no  satisfactory  reply  to 
their  demands,  the  Dutch  openly  declared  war  by 
capturing  some  English  ships  in  the  river.  Clive  at 
once  collected  together  a body  of  armed  volunteers, 
hastily  recalled  Forde  from  the  Northern  Circars, 
while  Admiral  Cornish,  with  three  men-of-war,  sailed 
up  the  river,  and  destroyed  six  of  the  Dutch  ships, 
the  last  of  the  squadron  being  captured  at  the  mouth 
of  the  river.  As  soon  as  Colonel  Forde  reached 
Calcutta  he  marched  out  with  320  Europeans,  800 
sepoys,  and  50  European  volunteers.  At  Biderra, 
near  Chinsurah,  he  found  himself  opposed  by  a Dutch 
force  of  700  Europeans  and  800  Malays.  Seeing  the 
force  assembled  against  him  he  wrote  to  Clive  for 
advice.  Clive,  who  was  playing  whist,  sent  back  a 
hurried  message  in  pencil,  “ Dear  Forde,  fight  them 
immediately,  I will  send  you  the  order  in  Council  to- 
morrow.” Forde  fought  on  November  25,  1759,  only 
50  Dutch  and  250  Malays  escaped,  and  the  struggle 
by  the  Dutch  for  supremacy  in  India  was  ended. 

The  French  were  now  alone  left  to  struggle  for  a 
short  time  longer  against  the  growing  power  of  the 
English. 


LALLY. 


105 


Fort  St.  David  had  fallen  before  Count  Lally, 
Baron  de  Tollendal.  Madras  held  out,  though  closely 
invested  by  the  French  troops  from  December,  1758, 
to  February,  1759.  Enraged  at  the  long  resistance, 
out  of  patience  with  the  incompetence  and  ignorance 
of  his  officers,  the  overbearing  and  haughty  spirit  of 
Lally  at  length  broke  forth.  He  threatened  to  har- 
ness the  members  of  the  Council  at  Pondicherry  to 
his  waggons  when  they  delayed  in  sending  him  sup- 
plies or  money.  Knowing  nothing  of  the  country, 
he  rejected  with  contempt  the  advice,  founded  on  long 
experience,  of  Bussy,  estranging  all  by  his  hot  temper 
and  hasty  measures.  Ignorant  of  the  ways  of  the 
people  of  India,  and  caring  nothing  for  their  offended 
pride,  he  drove  the  high  caste  merchants  and 
Brahmans  to  carry  on  menial  works  in  his  camp. 
By  February,  1759,  his  supplies  had  almost  failed, 
his  native  troops  were  fast  deserting,  and  his  Euro- 
pean soldiers  making  overtures  to  join  the  enemy, 
so  when  the  English  fleet  under  Admiral  Pocock 
appeared  in  sight  he  was  reluctantly  obliged  to  raise 
the  siege  of  Madras,  leave  behind  him  his  sick  and 
wounded,  his  artillery  and  ammunition,  and  retire  to 
Pondicherry,  where  the  news  of  his  failure  was 
received  with  unconcealed  joy. 

In  September  of  the  same  year  the  French 
Admiral  Comte  d’Ache,  with  eleven  ships  of  the 
line,  after  two  hours’  cannonade  with  the  English 
fleet  of  nine  ships  under  Admiral  Pocock,  finally 
sailed  away  from  the  coast,  leaving  Lally  to  his  fate, 
an  abandonment  in  the  words  of  Captain  Mahan, 
“which  necessarily  led  to  the  fall  of  the  French 


io6 


ROBERT  CLIVE. 


power  in  India,  never  again  to  rise.”  In  January, 
1760,  Count  Lally  was  finally  defeated  by  Eyre 
Coote  at  the  battle  of  Wandewash  ; Bussy  was  taken 
prisoner,  the  French  retreating  to  Pondicherry,  which 
capitulated  in  January  of  the  next  year. 

Dupleix  and  La  Bourdonnais  had  been  already 
sacrificed  as  a reward  for  their  endeavours  to  work 
out  a future  for  their  country  in  the  East ; now  Lally 
the  brave,  the  impetuous  hero  of  many  a fight, 
thanked  on  the  field  of  battle  by  Marshal  Saxe,  and 
rewarded  by  Louis  XV.  with  a colonelcy  in  the  Irish 
Brigade  of  Dillon,  was  to  fall  the  last  victim.  Sent 
to  accomplish  a task,  impossible  so  long  as  the  French 
power  was  not  secured  on  the  seas,  in  European  as 
well  as  Eastern  waters,  he  failed,  as  Dupleix  and 
La  Bourdonnais  had  failed,  and  for  his  failure,  on 
returning  to  France,  was  thrown  into  the  Bastille,  con- 
victed of  having  betrayed  the  interests  of  his  king 
“and  as  a reward  for  35  years’  service,”  as  he 
bitterly  moaned,  brought  forth  gagged  and  bound, 
driven  on  a cart  used  for  refuse,  to  the  Place  de 
Greve,  where  he  was  executed. 

Through  all  these  contests  Clive  had  the  sea-power 
of  England  to  support  him.  With  unerring  insight 
he  had  turned  from  the  south,  where  no  advance  into 
the  heart  of  India  was  possible,  and  firmly  established 
the  British  power  in  the  rich,  alluvial  tracts  of  Bengal 
amid  a tame  and  law-abiding  populace,  where  the 
Company  might  in  peace  consolidate  its  strength, 
make  surer  its  foothold,  and  slowly,  at  its  own  chosen 
time,  advance  further  and  further,  each  step  being 
secured  before  the  next  was  attempted,  until  finally 


CLIVE  LEAVES  BENGAL. 


107 


their  power  had  crept  all  over  the  land,  up  the  Ganges 
to  Benares,  further  on  to  the  Himalayas,  gaining 
wealth,  power,  and  strength,  to  raise  armies  to  subdue 
the  south  and  west,  plant  the  British  standard  by 
the  Indus,  sweep  in  the  garnered  wealth  of  Oudh, 
and  then  hand  over  the  dominions  and  trade  its 
servants  had  won  and  fostered  to  the  safe-keeping  of 
the  Queen-Empress. 

On  the  25th  of  February,  1760,  at  the  age  of  thirty- 
five,  Clive  sailed  for  England,  where  he  received  from 
George  III.  an  Irish  Peerage  as  Lord  Clive,  Baron 
Plassey,  as  a reward  for  the  services  he  had  rendered 
to  his  country,  for,  in  the  words  of  Earl  Stanhope, 
“ Whatever  gratitude  Spain  owes  to  her  Cortes,  or 
Portugal  to  her  Albuquerque,  this — and  in  its  results 
more  than  this — is  due  from  England  to  Clive.  Had 
he  never  been  born,  I do  not  believe  that  we  should — 
at  least  in  that  generation — have  conquered  Hindoo- 
stan  ; had  he  lived  longer,  I doubt  if  we  should — at 
least  in  that  generation — have  lost  North  America.” 

Clive  remained  in  England,  and  the  Government 
of  Bengal  passed  into  the  hands  of  Mr.  Vansittart. 
The  French  were  still  fighting  in  the  south.  The 
sums  Mir  Jafar  had  agreed  to  pay  after  the  battle  of 
Plassey  had  not  been  fully  paid,  and  the  money  was 
wanted.  English  writers  on  ^5  a year,  factors  on 
^15  a year,  junior  and  senior  merchants  on  £30  and 
£40  a year,  a president  on  .£300  a year,  his  coun- 
sellors on  from  £40  to  £100,  were  engaged  in  trade, 
all  determined,  more  or  less,  to  make  a speedy 
fortune  and  return  to  England,  while  the  army  was 
growing,  and  the  pay  of  the  soldiers  in  arrears.  Some 


io8 


ROBERT  CLIVE. 


method  to  meet  the  growing  expenses  had  to  be 
found.  Accordingly  Air.  Yansittart  wrote  to  the 
Court  of  Proprietors  that  in  consequence  of  “the 
general  confusion  and  disaffection  of  the  country,  and 
the  very  low  state  of  the  Company’s  treasury,  one  or 
other  of  these  resolutions  was  immediately  necessary 
— either  to  drop  our  connexions  with  the  country 
Government  and  withdraw  our  assistance  : or  to 
insist  on  more  ample  as  well  as  more  certain  provision 
for  the  support  of  the  Company’s  expense.” 

The  \ iceroy  was  old,  said  to  be  debauched  and 
indolent,  while  his  son-in-law,  Mir  Muhammed  Kasim 
bid  high  for  the  post.  In  the  dead  of  night,  Mir  Jafar 
was  removed  and  Mir  Kasim  installed  on  condition 
that  he  should  pay  the  arrears  due  to  the  Company, 
grant  the  revenues  of  Bard  wan,  Midnapur,  and 
Chittagong,  and  50  lakhs  of  rupees  towards  the 
expenses  of  the  war  in  the  south.  The  Governor, 
Mr.  Yansittart,  was  to  receive  .£30,000,  Mr.  Holwell, 
£27,000,  others  sums  of  £25,000,  £20,000,  and 
£13,000.  The  revenues  of  the  whole  of  Bengal  were 
now  in  the  hands  of  the  servants  of  the  Company. 
Having  the  right  of  free  passage,  without  payment  of 
tax  or  toll,  for  the  inland  produce,  in  which  they 
traded,  they  commenced  for  a consideration  to 
smuggle  the  goods  of  native  traders ; they  even 
forced  the  villagers  to  buy  and  sell  at  prices  fixed 
by  themselves. 

The  new  Yiceroy  daily  became  more  alarmed. 
Unable  to  obtain  redress,  and  unwilling  to  allow  the 
power  to  pass  from  his  hands  without  a struggle,  he 
commenced  to  prepare  for  war,  now  inevitable  by 


MALADMINISTRA  T/OX. 


109 


organising  his  troops  under  two  soldiers  of  fortune, 
Reinhardt  an  Alsatian,  and  Markar  an  Armenian. 
When  two  ships  from  Calcutta  appeared  at  Mungfr 
carrying  arms  for  the  English  troops  at  Patna,  he 
detained  the  ships  and  placed  the  officers  in  charge 
under  guard.  Mr.  Ellis,  the  English  Governor,  re- 
torted by  seizing  the  city.  The  Viceroy’s  troops 
under  Reinhardt  and  Markar  came  to  the  rescue. 
Ellis  and  his  followers  were  hemmed  in,  cap- 
tured and  placed  in  imprisonment.  War  was  at 
once  proclaimed.  Mir  Kasim’s  forces  were  defeated 
by  Major  John  Adams  at  Katvva  and  Gheria,  forty 
thousand  of  them  being  driven  back  with  fearful 
slaughter  from  the  fortress  at  the  gorge  of  Undwa 
Xala.  Mir  Kasim,  incensed  at  the  success  of  the 
Company,  gave  orders  that  Mr.  Ellis  and  the 
prisoners  should  be  instantly  executed.  On  the 

5 th  of  October,  1763,  Walter  Reinhardt,  sur- 
named  Sambre  by  his  companions,  and  Samru  by 
the  natives,  forced  two  companies  of  his  sepoys 
to  carry  out  the  order,  and  Ellis,  with  two 
hundred  unarmed  men,  women,  and  children,  were 
foully  massacred.  Patna  was  soon  afterwards  cap- 
tured by  Major  Adams ; but  Mir  Kasim  escaping, 
under  the  escort  of  Samru,  sought  protection  in 
Allahabad  with  Shuja-ud-Daula,  Nawab  Wazir  of 
Oudh,  where  the  Emperor,  Shah  Alam,  driven  from 
Delhi  by  the  Afghans,  had  also  taken  refuge. 
Between  the  three,  an  alliance  offensive  and  de- 
fensive against  the  English  was  entered  into,  and 
with  fifty  thousand  followers  they  advanced  to 
Baksar  near  Patna.  From  here  Mir  Kasim  was 


I IO 


ROBERT  CLIVE. 


driven  forth  by  his  allies,  weary  of  his  cowardice 
and  inability  to  raise  the  funds  he  had  promised 
towards  the  expenses  of  the  war.  He  died  soon 
afterwards  in  abject  poverty. 

Hector  Munro,  having  with  prompt  and  unrelent- 
ing severity  quelled  the  first  Sepoy  Mutiny  in  India 
by  blowing  from  the  guns  twenty-four  of  his  mutinous 
troops,  advanced  against  the  allied  forces  whom  he 
defeated  with  terrible  slaughter  in  the  decisive  battle 
of  Baksar  on  the  23rd  of  October,  1764. 

Benares  immediately  surrendered,  and  Allahabad 
capitulated  to  Sir  Robert  Fletcher,  leaving  the  Nawab 
Wazi'r  of  Oudh,  deserted  by  Samru,  no  alternative 
but  to  sue  for  peace  on  terms  to  be  dictated  by  the 
English.  The  result  of  this  decisive  victory,  second 
only  to  Plassey.was  fully  recognised  by  Clive,  who  wrote 
to  Pitt,  in  1766,  “ ItHs  scarcely  hyperbole  to  say,  to- 
morrow the  whole  Mogul  Empire  is  in  our  power.” 
Mir  Jafar,  again  installed  as  viceroy,  died  soon  after- 
wards, and  left  a legacy  of  5 lakhs  of  rupees  to  Clive, 
who  handed  the  amount  over  to  the  treasury  at 
Calcutta  to  form  a fund  for  the  relief  of  officers  and 
soldiers  invalided  or  disabled  during  service,  as  well  as 
for  widows  of  officers  and  soldiers  dying  on  service — 
a fund  known  for  over  a century  as  “ Lord  Clive’s 
Fund,”  which  reverted  to  the  heirs  of  Clive  when 
India  was  transferred  from  the  East  India  Company 
to  the  Crown. 

On  the  death  of  the  Viceroy,  Mr.  Vansittart  and  his 
Council,  in  direct  contravention  of  a recent  order  from 
the  Court  of  Directors  prohibiting  their  servants  from 
receiving  any  presents,  installed  the  illegitimate  son  of 


CLIVE  RESTORES  ORDER. 


I I I 


Mir  K&sim  on  receiving  a sum  of  io  lakhs  of  rupees 
to  be  divided  among  them  as  they  should  elect. 

The  Court  of  Directors  in  London  was  now 
thoroughly  alarmed  at  these  arbitrary  proceedings  of 
the  Calcutta  Council,  as  well  as  at  the  rapacity  and 
private  trade  of  their  servants  which  threatened 
financial  ruin  to  the  Company’s  own  affairs.  They 
accordingly  wrote  to  the  Governor  of  Bengal  : “ One 
grand  source  of  the  disputes,  misunderstandings,  and 
difficulties  which  have  occurred  with  the  Country 
Government  appears  evidently  to  have  taken  its  rise 
from  the  unwarrantable  and  licentious  manner  of 
carrying  on  private  trade  of  the  Company’s  servants. 

. . . In  order,  therefore,  to  remedy  all  these  disorders, 
we  do  hereby  positively  order  and  direct, — That  from 
the  receipt  of  this  letter,  a final  and  effectual  end  be 
forthwith  put  to  the  Inland  Trade  in  Salt,  beetle  nut 
and  tobacco,  and  all  other  articles  whatsoever  produced 
and  consumed  in  the  Country.” 

Fearing  that  this  order  would  not  be  effectually 
carried  out,  the  Court  of  Directors  supplemented  it 
in  1764  by  praying  Clive  to  proceed  to  India  and 
place  their  affairs  in  order.  This  determination  was 
conveyed  to  the  Council  at  Bengal  in  the  following 
words: — “The  General  Court  of  Proprietors  having, 
on  account  of  the  critical  situation  of  the  Company’s 
affairs  in  Bengal,  requested  Lord  Clive  to  take  upon 
him  the  station  of  President,  and  the  Command  of  the 
Company’s  Military  forces  there,  his  Lordship  has 
been  appointed  President  and  Governor  accordingly.” 
Clive  landed  at  Calcutta  on  the  3rd  of  May,  1765, 
having  full  power  to  act  with  a Select  Committee  of 


I 12 


ROBERT  CLIVE. 


four  members  independent  of  the  Bengal  Council. 
When  one  member  of  the  old  Council,  Mr.  Johnstone, 
ventured  to  ask  some  questions  respecting  the  new 
power  of  the  committee,  Clive,  as  he  himself  writes, 
haughtily  asked  him  “ if  he  would  dare  to  dispute  our 
authority?  Mr.  Johnstone  replied,  that  he  never  had 
the  least  intention  of  doing  such  a thing  ; upon  which 
there  was  an  appearance  of  very  long  and  pale 
countenances,  and  not  one  of  the  Council  uttered 
another  syllable.” 

Within  two  days  of  Clive’s  arrival  every  act  of  the 
Council,  especially  their  indecent  haste  in  installing  a 
new  Viceroy,  and  their  reception  of  presents,  had  been 
censured  by  Clive,  who  sums  up  his  judgment  on 
their  procedure  by  writing,  “Alas!  how  is  the  English 
name  sunk  ! I could  not  avoid  paying  the  tribute  of 
a few  tears  to  the  departed  and  lost  fame  of  the 
British  Nation  (irrecoverably  so,  I fear).” 

Clive  landed  on  Tuesday;  the  following  Monday 
the  Select  Committee  directed  that  a covenant  not 
to  take  bribes  or  presents  for  the  future  should  be 
signed  by  all  Members  of  Council,  and  by  all  the 
Company’s  servants,  who,  as  Clive  writes,  “ after 
many  idle  and  evasive  arguments,  and  being  given 
to  understand  that  they  must  either  sign  or  be 
suspended  the  service,  executed  the  covenants 
upon  the  spot.”  Soon  after  Clive  was  able  to  write 
respecting  the  future  of  the  Company’s  affairs  in 
India,  and  his  words  are  as  applicable  to-day  as 
they  were  then  : “ I am  persuaded  that  nothing  can 
prove  fatal,  but  a renewal  of  licentiousness  among 
your  servants  here,  or  intestine  divisions  among 
yourselves  at  home.” 


REFORMS. 


113 

How  far  the  general  corruption  and  laxity  had 
spread  during  his  absence  may  be  judged  from  one 
of  his  letters  home,  in  which  he  declares,  “ I fear  the 
Military  as  well  as  Civil  are  so  far  gone  in  luxury 
and  debauchery,  that  it  will  require  the  utmost 
exertion  of  our  united  Committee  to  save  the 
Company  from  destruction.” 

Noteworthy  are  his  words  as  he  viewed  with  alarm 
the  position  which  he  was  sent  out  to  face  : “If  ideas 
of  conquest  were  to  be  the  rule  of  our  conduct,  I 
foresee  that  we  should  by  necessity  be  led  from 
acquisition  to  acquisition  until  we  had  the  whole 
Empire  up  in  arms  against  us.”  He  dwells  carefully 
on  the  great  danger  that  may  arise  if  once  the 
natives  throw  off  their  “ natural  indolence,”  combined 
to  carry  on  a “ war  against  us  in  a much  more 
soldierly  manner  than  they  ever  thought  of.” 

Having  placed  the  internal  affairs  of  the  Company 
on  a firm  basis,  Clive  proceeded  to  conclude  peace 
with  the  Xawab  Wazir  of  Oudh,  for,  at  that  period, 
he  conceived  it  essential,  as  he  wrote,  “ to  conciliate 
the  affections  of  the  country  powers,  to  remove  any 
jealousy  they  may  entertain  of  our  unbounded 
ambition,  and  to  convince  them  that  we  aim  not 
at  conquest  and  dominion,  but  security  in  carrying 
on  a free  trade.” 

The  territories  of  the  Xawab  Wazir  of  Oudh  were 
restored  on  his  paying  half  a million  sterling  for  the 
expenses  of  the  war.  Allahabad  and  Kora,  yielding 
a revenue  of  2,800,000  rupees  yearly,  were  retained 
and  given  to  the  Emperor  Shah  Alam  in  exchange 
for  the  perpetual  right,  or  Diwanship,  over  the  entire 

9 


ROBERT  CLIVE. 


I 14 

revenues  of  Bengal,  Behar,  Orissa,  and  the  Northern 
Circars,  the  Emperor  receiving  in  exchange  an 
annual  tribute  of  ^260,000,  and  the  new  Viceroy  an 
annual  allowance  of  £600,000  wherewith  to  pay  his 
dancing  girls.  The  collection  of  the  revenues  in 
these,  districts  was  left  in  the  hands  of  the  native 
agents,  for,  as  the  Directors  wrote,  they  were  aware 
“ how  unfit  an  Englishman  is  to  conduct  the  collection 
of  revenues  and  to  follow  the  subtle  native  thought, 
all  his  art  is  to  conceal  the  real  value  of  his  country, 
to  perplex  and  elude  the  payment.”  By  this  arrange- 
ment Bengal,  Behar,  and  Orissa  virtually  became 
the  property  of  the  Company — a property  likely,  in 
the  opinion  of  Clive,  to  yield  a yearly  revenue  of  two 
millions  sterling.  The  acquisition,  in  fact,  exceeded 
everything  that  could  have  been  conceived  by  the 
wildest  imagination  of  Dupleix  and  in  the  words  of 
Clive,  “To  go  further  is,  in  my  opinion,  a scheme  so 
extravagantly  ambitious,  that  no  Governor  and  Council 
in  their  senses  can  accept  it  unless  the  whole  system 
of  the  Company’s  interests  be  first  entirely  new 
remodelled.” 

As  a barrier  between  the  limits  of  the  Company’s 
territories  and  the  north  of  India,  the  puppet 
sovereign  of  Oudh  was  left  in  power,  while  the 
Emperor  held  the  strong  fortress  of  Allahabad,  to 
keep  in  check  all  Maratha  and  Pathan  invaders. 
Nothing  remained  for  the  Company  but  to  consolidate 
their  position,  secure  themselves  in  their  own  pos- 
sessions, conciliate  the  natives,  train,  discipline,  and 
augment  their  army,  hoard  their  resources,  and  be 
prepared  for  what  the  future  might  bring  forth. 


DISCONTENT.  I I 5 

In  order  to  carry  out  the  policy  of  the  Directors, 
Clive  reorganised  the  entire  system  of  the  inland 
trade.  The  sale  of  salt  had  been  virtually  monopo- 
lised by  the  Company’s  servants,  who  paid  neither 
duty  nor  toll,  or  at  most  a small  one  of  2| 
per  cent.  That  this  was  a lucrative  business  may 
be  seen  from  the  fact  that  with  good  management 
it  paid  over  200  per  cent,  on  the  capital  ex- 
pended. It  was,  however,  declared  illegal  as  well  as 
the  trade  in  betel  nut,  tobacco,  and  all  articles  not 
intended  for  import  or  export.  Some  effort  at 
compensation,  to  the  senior  military  and  civil  officers, 
was  made  by  Clive,  who  formed  a fund  to  carry  on 
the  trade  under  public  management  in  the  profits  of 
which  they  were  to  participate  in  fixed  proportions 
according  to  their  rank — a system,  however,  not  finally 
approved  of  by  the  Directors. 

This  measure,  and  the  curtailment  of  a special 
allowance  made  to  military  officers  when  on  active 
service  or  away  from  headquarters — a privilege  en- 
joyed since  the  days  of  Plassey — resulted  in  open 
mutiny,  two  hundred  officers  threatening  to  resign 
their  commissions  on  the  same  day  unless  this 
allowance  was  restored. 

Sir  Robert  Fletcher,  Commandant  at  Mungi'r, 
secretly  encouraged  the  movement,  while  the  civil 
officers  at  Calcutta  subscribed  a sum  of  £ 16,000  for 
the  benefit  of  any  officers  who  might  be  cashiered. 

Clive  was  not  to  be  intimidated  in  his  efforts  to 
carry  out  the  Directors’  instructions.  Sir  Robert 
Fletcher  was  cashiered,  new  officers  were  ordered 
up  from  Madras,  those  who  had  combined  were  tried 


ROBERT  CLIVE. 


1 1 6 

by  martial  law,  six  were  convicted  of  mutiny,  the  rest 
allowed  to  recall  their  resignations  only  on  their  fully 
recognising  that  they  were  permitted  to  continue  in 
the  service  as  an  act  of  extreme  grace  and  favour. 

Clive  remained  in  India  one  year  and  a half, 
during  which  time,  in  the  words  of  Macaulay,  he 
“ effected  one  of  the  most  extensive,  difficult  and 
salutary  reforms  that  ever  was  accomplished  by  any 
statesman.” 

His  health  breaking  down  he  determined  to  return 
home,  notwithstanding  that  the  Directors  urged  him 
to  remain,  for  as  they  wrote : “ The  general  voice 
of  the  Proprietors,  indeed,  we  may  say,  of  every  man, 
will  be  to  join  in  our  request,  that  your  Lordship  will 
continue  another  year  in  India,”  their  opinion  being: 
“ Your  own  example  has  been  the  principal  means 
of  restraining  the  general  rapaciousness  and  corrup- 
tion which  had  brought  our  affairs  so  near  the  brink 
of  ruin.” 

Clive,  however,  could  not  be  induced  to  remain. 
He  left  India  finally  on  the  29th  of  January,  1767, 
at  a time  when,  in  consequence  of  brilliant  hopes 
held  out  for  the  future  trade  of  the  Company,  the 
price  of  Stock  had  gone  up  to  263,  and  the  dividends 
had  risen  from  6 to  10,  and  even  to  12^  per  cent. 

In  1698  the  Company  had  advanced  to  the  Crown 
two  millions  sterling  at  8 per  cent,  interest;  in  1702, 
one  million;  in  1730,  four  millions  sterling  without 
interest;  in  1744,  on  extension  of  their  Charter,  one 
million  sterling  at  3 per  cent.;  so  that  by  1758  a 
total  debt  of  £4, 200,000  at  3 per  cent,  was  owed 
them,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  they  had  to  pav 


PARLIAMENT  A R Y 1NQUIR V. 


ii  7 

£400,000  to  the  Exchequer  yearly,  on  account  of  the 
revenue  derived  from  their  newly  acquired  position  in 
India. 

These  fair  hopes  of  prosperity,  however,  did  not 
last  long.  In  the  south  of  India  Haidar  Ah'  had 
risen  to  power,  extended  his  kingdom  of  Mysore  as 
far  north  as  the  Kistna,  established  a maritime  force 
on  the  west  coast  at  Mangalore,  and  by  1769  had 
ravaged  the  country  round  Madras  up  to  St.  Thomas’ 
Mount,  impoverishing  the  Madras  Government. 

In  1770  Bengal  was  devastated  by  a fearful  famine 
during  the  course  of  which  one-third  to  one-half  of 
its  inhabitants  died,  the  trade  becoming  totally  dis- 
organised, and  the  revenues  remaining  uncollected. 

By  1773  the  Company  were  virtually  bankrupt. 
Although  their  shares  paid  a dividend  of  6 per  cent, 
the  year  before,  they  had  been  obliged  to  borrow  to 
the  extent  of  £1,290,000,  their  Capital  Stock,  amount- 
ing to  £4,000,000,  being  represented  by  effects  and 
credits  in  England,  China,  India,  St.  Helena,  and  on 
the  sea,  by  a sum  of  £2,930,658  10s.  iod. 

An  application  to  the  Government  for  a loan  of 
£1,000,000  to  enable  them  to  carry  on  their  business 
led  to  an  inquiry  into  the  whole  affairs  of  the  Com- 
pany, and  an  impeachment  of  Clive’s  administration, 
particularly  his  dealings  with  Siraj-ud-Daula  and  Mir 
Jafar. 

As  a result  it  was  ruled  by  the  Commons  that  all 
the  acquisitions  made  by  military  force  in  India,  or 
acquired  by  treaty  with  foreign  powers,  did  by  right 
belong  to  the  State,  while,  with  regard  to  Clive,  they 
left  the  question  unvoted  on  as  to  whether  or  not  he 


1 1 8 


ROBERT  CLIVE. 


had  “ abused  the  power  with  which  he  was  entrusted, 
to  the  evil  example  of  the  servants  of  the  public,  and 
to  the  dishonour  and  detriment  of  the  State,”  con- 
tenting themselves  with  passing  a resolution  that 
“ Robert,  Lord  Clive,  did  render  great  and  meritorious 
services  to  his  country  a resolution  which  did  little 
to  soothe  the  worn-out  spirit  of  the  victor  of  Plassey, 
who  died  by  his  own  hand,  after  great  physical 
suffering,  at  his  house  in  Berkeley  Square  in  1774. 

The  Company  was  released  from  the  annual  pay- 
ment of  the  £400,000,  it  was  lent  £1,500,000  for 
four  years,  being,  however,  debarred  from  declaring 
a dividend  of  more  than  6 per  cent,  on  their  business 
Jll  the  loan  was  repaid.  Lord  North’s  Regulating 
Act  of  1773  at  the  same  time  definitely  established 
Parliamentary  control  over  the  whole  affairs  of  the 
Company.  Copies  of  all  papers  respecting  civil  or 
military  affairs  in  India  were  to  be  sent  to  the 
Secretaries  of  State  and  Lords  of  the  Treasury 
within  fourteen  days  of  receipt.  The  Governor- 
General  in  India  was  to  be  nominated  by  Parliament, 
he  was  to  hold  office  for  five  years,  and  to  have  a 
casting  vote  in  a new  Council  of  four  members.  A 
Supreme  Court  of  Justice  was  established  for  Cal- 
cutta, with  a Chief  Justice  and  four  Puisne  Judges, 
who,  with  the  aid  of  a jury  of  British  subjects,  were 
to  try  all  offences  except  petty  trade  disputes,  which 
were  left  to  the  former,  or  Mayor’s,  Court. 

The  first  Council  appointed  under  the  Act  con- 
sisted of  Richard  Barwell,  General  Clavering,  the 
Hon.  Colonel  Monson,  and  Philip  Francis,  the  first 
Governor-General  being  Warren  Hastings. 


VI. 

WARREN  HASTINGS. 

No  Governor-General  of  India  has  ever  been  called 
on  to  undertake  a task  more  complex  in  all  its  details 
than  that  undertaken  by  Warren  Hastings  when  he 
was  summoned  by  the  Directors  of  the  East  India 
Company  to  assume  charge  of  their  affairs  in  Bengal. 
No  Governor-General  has  had  more  difficulties  to 
encounter,  not  only  from  opposition  in  his  own 
Council  Chamber,  but  also  from  those  at  home  whom 
he  served,  and  from  whom  he  might  have  hoped  for 
encouragement  and  some  amount  of  loyal  support ; 
no  Governor-General  has  been  so  traduced,  maligned, 
and  misrepresented  by  those  whose  enmity  he  had 
roused  by  thwarting  their  self-interested  intrigues  or 
by  an  exposure  of  their  frauds  and  incapacities,  as 
well  as  by  those  who  had  full  opportunities  of 
judging  the  full  value  of  his  public  services,  but 
who  deemed  it  well  to  sacrifice  him  for  private  or 
party  purposes. 

Recent  impartial  and  judicial  research  has  done 
much  to  clear  the  character  of  Hastings  from  many 
wildly  reckless  and  even  false  charges.  Still,  no  sober 

1 19 


I 20 


WAR  REX  HASTINGS. 


inquiries  or  calm  decisions  will  ever  blot  away  the 
memory  of  the  words  of  impassioned  eloquence  and 
dramatic  force  with  which  nearly  ever)’  official  action 
of  his  life  was  denounced  by  the  greatest  orators  of 
his  time,  who  used  all  their  unrivalled  powers  to 
impress  the  imagination  of  their  audience  with  the 
enormity  of  the  offences  charged  against  him  by 
the  malice  of  his  enemies. 

Of  Hastings  it  can  be  truly  said  that  all  he  accom- 
plished— and  it  was  much — was  done  because  he  saw, 
with  a foresight  vouchsafed  only  to  a genius  such  as 
his,  what  the  interests  of  the  Company,  and  those  of 
his  country,  demanded  for  the  extension  of  commerce 
and  the  firm  establishment  of  the  British  rule  in  the 
East  whereon  that  commerce  could  alone  be  based. 

Arriving  in  India  at  the  age  of  nineteen,  in  October, 
1750,  Hastings,  like  Clive,  was  first  employed  in  the 
ordinary  clerical  duties  attached  to  the  office  of  a writer 
in  the  East  India  Company’s  service.  In  the  year 
1754  he  was  transferred  to  the  factor)’  at  Kasimbazar, 
on  the  Ganges.  There  his  chief  occupation  seems  to 
have  been  the  making  of  bargains  with  the  native 
traders  for  the  supply  of  silk  stuffs  to  be  sent  home 
to  enrich  the  London  merchants.  In  1756  happened 
the  dire  catastrophe  of  the  Black  Hole  of  Calcutta. 
Hastings,  in  the  confusion,  escaped  from  Kasimbazar 
and  made  his  way  down  the  Ganges,  joining  the 
refugees,  and  afterwards  took  part  as  a volunteer 
in  Clive’s  campaigns.  Pathetic  as  is  much  in  the 
history  of  Hastings,  no  more  pathetic  fact  is  recorded, 
in  all  its  meagre  details,  than  that  his  first  wife,  the 
widow  of  a Captain  Campbell,  whom  he  married  in 


EARLY  SERVICE. 


I 2 I 


1756,  died  in  1759,  leaving  two  children,  who  did  not 
long  survive. 

On  the  return  of  Clive  to  England,  Hastings,  then 
in  his  twenty-ninth  year,  was  appointed  Member  of 
Council  at  Calcutta.  In  the  years  of  deplorable 
mismanagement  which  followed,  Hastings,  in  the 
words  of  Macaulay,  “ was  never  charged  with  having 
borne  a share  in  the  worst  abuses  which  ensued, 
and  it  is  almost  equally  certain  that,  if  he  had 
borne  a share  in  those  abuses,  the  able  and  bitter 
enemies  who  afterwards  persecuted  him  would  not 
have  failed  to  discover  and  proclaim  his  guilt.” 

After  ten  years’  service  in  the  enervating  climate  of 
Bengal  he  returned  home  with  but  a comparatively 
small  income.  His  generosity  to  his  relatives  and 
financial  losses  soon  left  him  no  option  but  to  apply 
once  again  to  the  Court  of  Directors  for  employ- 
ment in  their  service  in  the  East — an  application 
at  once  acceded  to,  for  Hastings  had,  as  the 
Directors  recorded  in  their  order  appointing  him 
second  Member  of  Council  at  Madras,  “ served  us 
many  years  upon  the  Bengal  establishment  with 
great  ability  and  unblemished  character.”  Borrow- 
ing money  wherewith  to  buy  an  outfit,  he  sailed,  in 
1769,  from  Dover,  to  build  anew  his  fortunes  in  a 
life  of  exile  in  the  East. 

On  the  long  voyage  out  a romantic  attachment 
sprang  up  between  him  and  Mrs.  Imhoff,  whom  he 
afterwards  married  on  a divorce  being  obtained  from 
her  husband,  a German  baron.  At  Madras,  in  ad- 
dition to  his  duties  as  Member  of  Council,  he  acted 
as  export  warehouse  keeper  until  the  year  1772,  when 


I 22 


WAR  REX  HASTIXGS. 


he  was  directed  to  proceed  to  Calcutta  to  assume 
charge  of  the  Government,  and,  if  possible,  evolve 
order  out  of  the  chaos  into  which  the  affairs  of  the 
Company  had  lapsed. 

From  Clive  he  received  a letter  of  advice,  beseech- 
ing him  to  “ be  impartial  and  just  to  the  public, 
regardless  of  the  interest  of  individuals,  where  the 
honour  of  the  nation  and  the  real  advantage  of  the 
Company  are  at  stake,  and  resolute  in  carrying  into 
execution  your  determination,  which  I hope  will  at 
all  times  be  rather  founded  upon  your  own  opinion 
than  that  of  others,”  and  at  the  same  time  “ always 
flattering  yourself  that  time  and  perseverance  will 
get  the  better  of  everything.” 

The  problem  before  Hastings  was  how  to  secure 
from  attacks  by  native  powers  the  territories  won  by 
Clive,  how  to  raise  revenue  from  them  sufficient  to 
satisfy  the  expenses  of  administration,  the  demands 
of  the  Directors,  as  well  as  the  heavy  and  sudden 
liabilities  to  be  incurred  for  wars  which  he  knew 
must  inevitably  occur  in  the  near  future.  In  order 
to  effect  these  objects  “ it  is  impossible,”  as  he  wrote 
in  a letter  to  Sir  George  Colebrooke,  “ to  avoid 
errors ; and  there  are  cases  ...  in  which  it  may 
be  necessary  to  adopt  expedients  which  are  not  to 
be  justified  on  such  principles  as  the  public  can  be 
judges  of.” 

A great  power  had  arisen  in  the  west  and  north 
of  India  which  for  a time  seemed  as  though  it  would 
succeed  in  founding  a Hindu  dominion  on  the  ruins 
of  the  Mughal  Empire,  and  dictate  its  orders  to  the 
servants  of  the  Company.  The  MarMhas  had  from 


MARATHAS.  1 23 

the  seventeenth  century — when  first  as  predatory 
bands  of  raiding  and  robbing  horsemen  they  were 
led  forth  annually  from  their  mountain  homes  lying 
amid  the  highlands  of  the  west  by  their  great  leader 
Sivaji — grown  to  be  an  organised  force  of  fighting 
soldiers,  who  under  their  chieftains  levied  contribu- 
tions far  and  wide  over  all  the  rich  villages  lying 
outside  the  Company’s  possessions  at  Bombay',  Cal- 
cutta, and  Madras. 

As  the  successors  of  Sivaji  became  weak  and 
effeminate  their  power  passed  to  the  hands  of  their 
astute  Brahman  ministers,  or  Peshwas,  who  fixed 
their  headquarters  at  Poona.  At  the  same  time 
successful  leaders  gathered  around  themselves  bands 
of  horsemen  who  claimed  the  right  to  pillage  and 
le\y  contributions  over  defined  districts,  all,  however, 
rendering  a more  or  less  loyal  allegiance  to  the 
Peshwas.  Holkar,  descendant  of  a shepherd,  assumed 
sovereignty  around  his  capital  at  Indore.  Sindhia, 
whose  ancestors  were  hereditary  slipper-bearers  to 
the  proud  Peshwas,  established  himself  in  power  at 
Gwalior,  while  Baroda  fell  to  the  Gaekwars,  and 
Nagpur  to  the  Bhonslas.  One  final  effort  to  break 
this  great  rising  Hindu  nationality  and  restore  the 
sway  of  the  Mughals  was  made  byr  the  Muhammadan 
ruler  of  Afghanistan,  when  Ahmad  Shah  Durani, 
at  the  head  of  his  Turkoman  cavalry,  came  riding 
through  the  north-west  passes  to  chastise  the  idola- 
trous Marathas  for  their  insolence  in  driving  the 
Emperor  from  Delhi  and  conquering  the  neigh- 
bouring lands  of  the  Punjab. 

On  the  fatal  field  of  Panipat  Ahmad  Shah  Durani 


WAR  REX  HASTINGS. 


1 -4 

cut  to  pieces  200,000  of  the  light  Maratha  horsemen, 
slew  the  bravest  of  their  chieftains,  including  the  son 
and  cousin  of  their  Peshwa — or,  as  the  news  was 
wailed  amid  their  mountain  homes,  “Two  pearls 
have  been  dissolved,  twenty-seven  gold  mohurs  have 
been  lost,  and  of  the  silver  and  copper  the  total 
cannot  be  cast  up.” 

Terrible  though  the  calamity  was  that  had  fallen 
on  the  Marathas,  they  soon  gathered  themselves 
together  to  dispute  the  sovereignty  with  the  East 
India  Company.  In  1769  the}'  raided  south,  de- 
vastating the  territories  of  the  fierce  Haidar  All, 
and  by  1771  they  had  once  again  in  their  power 
the  Emperor  at  Delhi,  forcing  him  to  surrender  to 
them  the  districts  of  Kora  and  Allahabad,  handed 
to  him  in  1765  by  Clive,  in  return  for  the  grant  of 
the  Governorship  over  Bengal,  Behar,  and  Orissa. 
In  consequence  of  this  defection  of  the  Emperor  from 
the  side  of  the  English,  Hastings  not  only  resumed 
possession  of  the  districts  of  Kora  and  Allahabdd, 
but  withheld  the  annual  tribute  of  ^300,000  which 
it  had  been  customary  to  pay  him  from  the  revenues 
of  Bengal,  Behar,  and  Orissa. 

Hastings,  so  far  as  the  Company’s  possessions  and 
interests  were  concerned,  had  brilliantly  succeeded  in 
counterplotting  the  wily  Maratha  stratagems  whereby 
they  hoped  to  rule  through  the  permission  of  the 
Emperor.  He  had  now  to  play  a bolder  game  re- 
quiring all  the  insight  his  genius  could  inspire — to 
carry  to  a successful  conclusion.  The  Company’s 
possessions  in  Bengal,  Behar,  and  Orissa  had  been 
won  by  Clive  ; it  yet  remained  to  place  them  under 


RO  HILL  AS. 


125 


a firm  and  wise  administration  ; it  yet  remained  to 
secure  them  from  all  possibility  of  Maratha  invasion, 
so  that  the  Company  might  have  time  to  secure  its 
position  and  gain  strength  and  power  for  its  ultimate 
expansion.  Between  the  Company’s  possessions  and 
the  Marathas  it  was  necessary  to  build  up  a strong 
and  friendly  native  state  which  might  receive,  and 
if  possible  break,  the  first  rude  shock  of  an  invading 
army. 

To  the  west  of  Bengal  and  Behar  lay  Oudh,  ruled 
by  its  Nawab  Wazir.  Beyond  Oudh,  stretching  north- 
east to  the  Himalayas,  lay  the  land  of  the  Rohillas, 
a fierce  race  of  Pathan  warriors  who  came  originally 
from  beyond  the  Indus,  conquered  the  rich,  fertile 
plains,  and  subdued  the  effete  Hindu  peasantry. 
With  the  Rohillas  the  Marathas  had  a deadly  feud, 
not  only  because  they  were  of  different  nationality 
and  religion,  but  because  the  Rohillas  had  stood  by 
and  allowed  the  Afghans  to  slaughter  the  Maratha 
chieftains  at  Panipat.  The  Marathas  did  not  wait 
long  for  vengeance.  In  1772  they  swarmed  down 
on  the  Rohillas,  who  were  obliged  to  turn  in  their 
distress  to  Shuja-ud-Daula,  the  Nawab  Wazir  of 
Oudh,  to  whom  they  offered  40  lakhs  of  rupees  if  he 
would  come  to  their  aid  and  drive  back  the  maraud- 
ing invaders.  With  the  assistance  of  the  forces  from 
Oudh,  strengthened  by  an  English  brigade  under 
Sir  Robert  Baker,  the  Marathas  were  driven  from 
Rohilkhand ; but,  as  might  have  been  expected, 
Hafiz  Rahmat  Khan,  beloved  chief  of  the  Rohillas, 
refused  to  pay  the  Nawab  Wazir  of  Oudh  the 
promised  subsidy  of  40  lakhs  of  rupees.  When 


126 


WARREN  HASTINGS. 


the  demand  was  pressed  he  threatened  to  join  his 
forces  to  those  of  his  former  foes,  the  Marathas, 
and  raid  the  territories  of  Oudh  and  those  of  the 
Company^. 

Hastings  at  once  summoned  the  Nawab  Wazi'r  to 
meet  him  at  Benares,  so  that  they'  might  concert 
measures  for  the  future  defence  of  their  possessions. 
At  the  meeting  which  ensued  it  was  decided  that  the 
Rohillas  should  be  driven  from  Rohilkhand  by7  a 
united  force  of  Oudh  and  the  Company  ; that  the 
Nawab  Wazi'r  should,  after  the  campaign,  take  pos- 
session of  the  outlying  districts  of  Rohilkhand,  as 
well  as  Kora  and  Allahabad  held  to  have  been  ceded 
by  the  Emperor  ; and  that  the  Company7  in  return 
should  receive  the  40  lakhs  of  rupees,  as  well  as  a 
further  sum  of  210,000  rupees  monthly,  during  the 
time  its  troops  were  engaged  in  the  field,  for  war 
expenses.  By7  the  victories  of  Plassey  and  Baksar 
Clive  won  a foothold  for  the  Company7  in  India; 
by  this  treaty7,  as  Hastings  wrote,  the  Nawab 
Wazi'r  would  obtain  “ a complete  compact  state  shut 
in  effectually  from  the  frontiers  of  Behar  to  the 
mountains  of  Thibet,  while  he  would  remain  equally7 
accessible  to  our  forces  from  the  above  provinces 
either  for  hostilities  or  for  protection.  It  would  give 
him  wealth,  of  which  we  should  partake,  and  give 
him  security  without  any  dangerous  increase  of 
power.  It  would  undoubtedly',  by  bringing  his 
frontier  nearer  to  the  Marathas,  for  whom  singly  he 
would  be  no  match,  render  him  more  dependent  on 
us,  and  cement  the  union  more  firmly  between  us.” 

As  to  the  essential  morality-  of  these  colossal  in- 


ROHILLA  WAR. 


12/ 

trigues  of  Hastings,  neither  his  age  nor  our  age,  in  a 
compulsory  struggle  for  existence,  can  judge.  The 
same  problem,  differing  in  none  of  its  essential  details, 
lies  before  us  to-day  in  our  determination  to  hold  our 
possessions  in  Africa  as  a field  for  the  outlet  of  our 
productions,  as  well  as  in  the  consistent  efforts  of 
Russia  to  gain  seaports  in  the  Mediterranean  or  in 
the  North  Pacific,  so  as  to  establish  a commercial 
prosperity  for  herself  in  the  future,  by  means  which 
are  inevitably  destined  to  end  in  success.  All  we  are 
concerned  with  is  the  fact  that  Hastings  in  his  deal- 
ings with  the  native  powers  had  but  one  main  ideal 
before  him — that  of  serving  the  interests  of  the  East 
India  Company,  and  establishing  on  a secure  basis  the 
foundation  of  the  British  Empire  in  India,  so  that 
the  commercial  enterprise  of  the  London  merchants 
should  have  its  necessary  development.  If  in  this 
there  be  discovered  any  taint  of  turpitude,  not  by 
Hastings  alone  but  by  the  nation  at  large  must  the 
blame  be  borne. 

Rohilkhand  was  conquered,  Hafiz  Rahmat  Khan 
died  bravely  fighting,  along  with  two  thousand  of  his 
troops,  while  the  remaining  Rohillas  were  sent  forth, 
across  the  Ganges,  to  seek  new  settlements  for  them- 
selves in  the  districts  round  Meerut.  The  usual  horrors 
of  war  accompanied  the  campaign,  but  in  the  pillaging 
and  burning  of  villages  which  ensued  neither  did  the 
British  troops  take  part  nor  was  Hastings  cognisant 
of  them.  By  all  means  in  his  power  he  reprobated 
and  sternly  suppressed  vindictive  violence  to  the 
conquered  and  oppression  of  the  peaceful  Hindu 
peasantry. 


128 


WARREN  HASTINGS. 


The  Company’s  territories  once  rendered  secure 
from  all  fear  of  invasion,  their  administration  was 
inaugurated  on  a system  which  in  its  essential  details 
has  lasted  down  to  our  own  days.  Up  to  the  time 
of  Hastings  the  administration  of  Bengal,  Behar, 
and  Orissa,  and  the  collection  of  the  land  revenue 
had  been  left  in  the  hands  of  the  native  officials,  Mu- 
hammad Raza  Khan  being  placed  in  charge  of  Bengal, 
and  Shitab  Rai — a brave  soldier  who  had  fought 
for  the  Company  during  the  outbreak  at  Patna — 
in  charge  of  the  local  government  at  Behar.  Rumours 
had,  however,  reached  the  Court  of  Directors  that  the 
revenues  were  being  misappropriated  by  these  two 
officials  and  their  native  subordinates.  The  care  of 
their  revenues,  as  well  as  their  trade,  had  now  become 
a matter  of  vital  importance  to  the  London  merchants, 
who  accordingly  sent  notice  to  Hastings  that  they 
deemed  it  full  time  “ to  take  upon  themselves,  by 
the  agency  of  their  own  servants,  the  entire  con- 
trol and  administration  of  the  revenues.”  The  govern- 
ment was  to  be  directed  from  Calcutta,  English 
officials  were  to  proceed  to  the  local  headquarters 
and,  aided  by  the  subordinate  native  officers,  com- 
mence as  collectors,  the  administration  and  collec- 
tion of  the  land  revenues,  Muhammad  Raza  Khan 
and  Shitab  Rai  were  to  be  removed  from  their 
posts,  sent  to  Calcutta,  and  there  tried  for  peculation 
and  past  misdeeds.  This  change  from  native  to  Euro- 
pean supervision  over  the  collection  of  the  revenues, 
one  sooner  or  later  inevitable,  was  primarily  due  to 
the  intrigues  of  a Brahman  of  high  caste  and  ancient 
lineage.  He,  Nanda  Kumar,  had  blazoned  forth  the 


NANDA  KUMAR. 


129 


alleged  peculations  and  maladministration  of  Mu- 
hammad Raza  Khan  and  Shitab  Rai,  hoping  that  by 
their  downfall  he  would  rise  to  power,  and  be  placed 
in  supreme  revenue  control.  Ever  has  the  cunning 
of  a Brahman  swayed  the  councils  of  rulers  and 
princes  in  India,  but  now  for  the  first  time  in  history 
the  astute  Brahman’s  intrigues  had  travelled  beyond 
the  land  of  his  birth,  and  worked  their  way  among  the 
simple  London  merchants.  In  vain  Hastings  told  the 
Court  of  Directors  that  “From  the  year  1759  to 
the  time  when  I left  Bengal  in  1764,  I was  engaged 
in  a continued  opposition  to  the  interests  and  designs 
of  that  man,  because  I judged  him  to  be  adverse  to 
the  welfare  of  my  employers.”  By  the  Directors 
Hastings  was  exhorted  to  listen  to  the  words  of 
their  trusted  adviser,  Xanda  Kumar,  and  bring  Mu- 
hammad Raza  Khan  and  Shitab  Rai  to  trial. 

Knowing  well  that  the  mind  of  a Brahman  is  like  a 
mirror  in  which  only  the  face  of  the  fool  who  looks 
therein  is  reflected,  Hastings,  who  could  read  all 
events  and  all  the  ways  of  men,  bowed  his  head  and 
ventured  no  further  to  tell  the  Directors  how  Nanda 
Kumar  had  deceived  them.  His  loyal  obedience  to 
the  dictates  of  the  Directors  was  received  by  them 
with  extreme  gratification,  for,,  as  they  wrote,  it  was 
“a  great  satisfaction  to  find  that  you  could  at  once 
determine  to  suppress  all  penal  resentment  when  the 
public  welfare  seemed  to  clash  with  your  private 
sentiment  with  regard  to  XTundcoomar.” 

Muhammad  Raza  Khan  and  Shitab  Rai  were 
arrested,  tried,  and  acquitted  of  the  charges  brought 
against  them.  X~anda  Kumar  was  left  brooding  in 

10 


130 


WARREN  HASTINGS. 


silent  rage  over  his  thwarted  plans,  for  the  men  he 
sought  to  ruin  had  been  declared  innocent  of  the 
charges  brought  against  them,  and  their  offices  given 
to  English  officials.  To  him  one  concession  was  made. 
His  son,  Raja  Gurdas,  was  appointed  manager  to  the 
affairs  of  the  minor  Viceroy  of  Bengal,  whose  guar- 
dian was  the  Manni  Begam,  widow  of  the  late  Vice- 
roy. Nanda  Kumar  remained  silent,  hoping  that  the 
power  of  a Brahman  could  in  time  work  all  things  to 
his  will. 

Three  of  the  new  Council  appointed  under  the 
Regulating  Act  of  Lord  North  arrived  in  India,  and 
Hastings  became  the  first  Governor-General  with  a 
yearly  salary  of  .£25,000.  General  Clavering,  Colonel 
Monson,  and  Philip  Francis,  all  men  of  strong  pre- 
judices, and  totally  unacquainted  with  the  ways  of 
India,  came  to  aid  Hastings  with  advice,  while 
Sir  Elijah  Impey  and  three  judges  were  to  form 
a new  Court  of  Justice.  The  fourth  Member  of 
Council,  Mr.  Richard  Barwell,  was  already  a member 
of  the  Government  of  Bengal. 

It  cannot  fairly  be  said  that  Philip  Francis,  the 
most  remarkable  among  the  newly  landed  councillors, 
is  the  most  contemptible  character  in  Indian  history, 
for  India  is  a land  in  which  intrigue  and  slow-witted 
cunning  have  given  scope  for  the  talents  of  many  men 
more  ignoble  than  Francis.  If  he  had  remained  in 
England  he  might  probably  in  those  scurrilous  days 
have  risen  to  some  position  of  despicable  notoriety. 
If  he  were  not  Junius  he  was  capable  of  being  a 
Junius.  His  character  is  summed  up  by  Macaulay: 
“ He  must  also  have  been  a man  in  the  highest  degree 


PHILIP  FRANCIS. 


131 

arrogant  and  insolent,  a man  prone  to  malevolence, 
and  prone  to  the  error  of  mistaking  his  malevolence 
for  public  virtue.” 

But  a character  such  as  his  was  doomed  to  failure 
in  India,  though  unfortunately  it  found  full  scope 
in  venting  its  malevolence  in  after  days  against 
Hastings  in  England.  Such  a character  is  common 
in  the  East.  It  could  be  read  by  the  natives  and  by 
Hastings  who  was  saturated  with  Oriental  feelings, 
just  as  a learned  man  reads  a book  written  in  a 
language  to  him  well  known. 

The  three  new  Members  of  Council,  headed  by 
Philip  Francis,  commenced  on  their  arrival  a sys- 
tematic, hostile  investigation  into  the  past  adminis- 
tration of  Hastings.  The  Treaty  of  Benares  was 
condemned,  the  Rohilla  war  declared  unjust,  and 
the  mode  in  which  it  had  been  carried  on  denounced 
as  sanguinary  and  vindictive.  The  newly  appointed 
agent  at  Lucknow  was  removed,  the  troops  recalled 
from  Rohilkhand,  and  the  Nawab  Wazir  ordered 
to  pay  up  all  the  arrears  due  to  the  Company  under 
the  treaty.  On  the  death  of  the  Nawab  Wazir,  on 
the  6th  of  February,  1775,  the  majority  of  the  Council 
forced  on  the  young  Nawab  Wazir,  Asaf-ud-Daula, 
a new  treaty.  A sum  of  one  crore  and  a half  of 
rupees  was  to  be  paid  at  once  on  account  of  the 
arrears  due  by  the  State,  an  increased  monthly 
subsidy  of  50,000  rupees  was  demanded  for  the  pay 
of  the  Company’s  troops  quartered  in  Oudh,  while  the 
revenue  from  the  territories  surrounding  Benares  was 
annexed  by  the  Company  to  whom  the  Raja  of 
Benares,  Chait  Singh,  became  feudatory. 


132 


WARREN  HASTINGS. 


The  news  went  forth  among  the  natives  that 
Hastings  was  no  longer  supreme  ; that  his  power  had 
been  usurped  by  agents  of  the  Company  sent  from 
England  to  depose  him.  Nanda  Kumar  at  the 
same  time  took  note  that  Philip  Francis  was  eager 
to  gain  the  Governor-Generalship,  and  more  than 
willing  to  listen  to  any  lying  words  that  would  aid 
him  in  ruining  Hastings. 

On  the  nth  of  March,  1775,  Francis  appeared 
before  the  Council,  and  presented  a letter  from 
Xanda  Kumar,  accusing  Hastings  of  having  re- 
ceived bribes  of  £100,000  and  £40,000  from  Mu- 
hammad Raza  Khan  and  Shitab  Rai  for  releas- 
ing them  from  the  charges  of  embezzlement  and 
malpractices.  In  the  same  letter  Hastings  was 
further  charged  with  having  received  bribes  of  3 
lakhs  and  54,000  rupees  from  the  writer,  Nanda 
Kumar,  and  from  the  Manni  Begam  for  the  appoint- 
ments of  Nanda  Kumar's  son  and  the  Manni  Begam 
to  the  Viceroy’s  establishment.  Hastings  having  pro- 
tested at  the  insult  offered  to  him  at  his  own  Council 
table,  withdrew  with  indignation,  and  was  followed 
by  his  sole  supporter,  Richard  Harwell.  An  inquiry 
was  held  by  the  remaining  three  ; Nanda  Kumar  was 
examined,  the  documents  were  impounded,  and  the 
entire  evidence  submitted  to  the  judges,  by  whom  it 
was  sent  home  to  the  Directors.  The  evidence 
remained  unnoticed  till  the  famous  trial  of  Hastings 
ten  years  afterwards,  when  it  was  produced  in  support 
of  the  seventh  article  of  impeachment  of  which 
he  was  found  not  guilty. 

Nanda  Kumar  might  well  tremble  when  he  found 


TRIAL  OF  NANDA  KUMAR. 


133 


that  his  cunning  could  not  compass  the  downfall  of 
the  Governor-General.  He  himself  had  been  guilty 
of  forgery,  a forgery  of  a bond  purporting  to  be  the 
acknowledgment  of  a debt  due  by  a Hindu  banker, 
on  whose  death  in  1769  he  had  presented  the  forged 
bond,  and  been  paid  the  money  mentioned  therein. 
The  bond,  torn  to  show  that  it  had  been  paid  and 
cancelled,  was  filed  in  the  Mayor’s  Court.  To  many 
the  secret  of  this  forgery  was  known,  but  it  had 
been  found  impossible  to  get  possession  of  the  docu- 
ment from  the  Mayor’s  Court.  At  length,  after  more 
than  a year’s  efforts  the  document  was  surrendered 
in  April,  1775,  and  Nanda  Kumar  was  arrested  on  a 
charge  of  forgery.  He  was  tried  by  the  Chief 
Justice,  three  puisne  judges,  and  an  English  jury. 
The  trial  lasted  seven  days,  and,  according  to  Sir 
James  Stephen,  who  exhaustively  examined  the 
whole  of  the  evidence,  “ no  man  ever  had,  or  could 
have,  a fairer  trial.”  Xanda  Kumar  was  found  guilty 
and  sentenced  to  be  hanged.  In  vain  he  looked 
round  for  help.  In  vain  he  prayed  Francis  to  inter- 
vene, and  save  from  pollution  the  sacred  body  of  a 
Brahman,  so  that  “ I shall  not  accuse  you  in  the  day 
of  judgment  of  neglecting  to  assist  me  in  the  ex- 
tremity I am  now  in.”  Francis  knew  too  well  there 
was  no  hope  for  his  former  ally.  Of  Xanda  Kumar’s 
guilt  there  could  be  no  doubt.  Justice,  stern  and 
unrelenting,  must  be  meted  out,  equally  to  high  caste 
Brahman  and  to  low  caste  worker  with  his  hands. 

Nanda  Kumar  was  hanged  before  his  own  people 
on  the  5th  of  August,  1775,  and  as  Francis  wrote, 
“After  the  death  of  Xundcoomar,  the  Governor,  I 


134 


WARREN  HASTINGS. 


believe,  is  well  assured  that  no  man  who  regards  his 
own  safety  will  venture  to  stand  forth  as  his  accuser.” 

The  death  of  Colonel  Monson  in  September,  1776, 
left  Hastings,  with  the  vote  of  Harwell,  strong  enough 
* in  the  Council  to  revoke  a resignation  he  had  sent 
home  some  time  previously,  while  the  death  of 
Clavering,  in  August,  1777,  set  him  free  to  carry  out 
a line  of  consistent  policy  towards  the  native  states, 
the  true  bearings  and  tendencies  of  which  he  alone 
could  understand. 

Dangers  which  threatened  the  very  existence  of 
the  newly  founded  British  Empire  in  India  were  now 
crowding  in  from  all  sides. 

In  1773,  when  the  English  Parliament  lent  the 
East  India  Company  the  sum  of  £1,500,000  in  order 
to  save  the  credit  of  the  Directors,  it  became  necessary 
that  Lord  North  should  devise  some  means  whereby 
the  Company  might  in  time  repay  the  loan.  The 
Company  at  that  time  had  17,000,000  pounds  of  tea 
lying  unsold  in  its  warehouses.  This  tea  was  liable 
to  a duty  of  25  per  cent,  on  exportation.  In  order  to 
assist  the  Company  in  selling  this  tea  the  export  duty 
was  remitted,  and  in  its  place  a duty  of  3 per 
cent,  exacted  on  its  sale  in  America.  The  tea  was 
thrown  into  Boston  Harbour,  and  on  the  4th  of 
July,  1776,  the  “Declaration  of  Independence”  was 
issued  by  Congress,  the  thirteen  colonies  throwing  off 
their  allegiance  to  England. 

The  news  soon  reached  India  that  General  Bur- 
goyne  and  5,000  English  troops  had,  on  the  17th  of 
October,  1 777,  surrendered  to  General  Gates  at  Sara- 
toga, news,  followed,  a month  later,  by  the  intelligence 


THE  DUEL. 


135 


that  France  had  declared  war  against  England.  Not 
only  was  France  to  be  dreaded  in  the  Eastern  seas, 
but  the  armies  of  the  Marathas  were  threatening 
Bengal,  and  the  Nizam  and  Haidar  Ah'  were  preparing 
to  crush  the  English  in  the  Deccan  and  in  the  south. 
Hastings  had  to  be  prepared  to  meet  these  dangers, 
and  to  find  means  for  defraying  all  the  expenditure 
and  extraordinary  outlay  that  would  necessarily  have 
to  be  incurred.  As  he  wrote  at  the  time,  “If  it  be 
really  true  that  the  British  troops  and  influence  have 
suffered  so  severe  a check  in  the  Western  world,  it  is 
the  more  incumbent  on  those  who  are  charged  with 
the  interest  of  Great  Britain  in  the  East  to  exert 
themselves  for  the  retrieval  of  the  national  losses.” 

Francis,  “ mistaking  his  own  malevolence  for  public 
virtue”  still  opposed,  still  demanded  explanations, 
still  wrote  long  minutes  in  order  to  expose  what  he 
considered  the  weakness,  dishonesty,  or  impolicy  of 
all  Hastings’  preparations  for  the  coming  struggle. 
Believing  in  a promise  of  neutrality  held  out  by 
Francis,  Hastings  had  allowed  his  friend  Barwell  to 
leave  India,  and  now,  to  his  astonishment,  found  the 
opposition  of  Francis  more  aggressive  than  ever. 
His  slow  wrath  at  last  burst  forth.  In  a letter  to 
Francis  he  charged  him  with  being  guilty  both  in 
his  private  and  public  life  of  conduct  “ devoid  of  truth 
and  honour.” 

A duel  ensued;  Francis  received  a bullet  in  his 
side,  and  soon  after,  on  the  17th  of  August,  1780, 
deemed  it  advisable  to  leave  India  for  England,  there 
to  carry  on  his  rancorous  opposition  to  the  policy  of 
the  Governor-General. 


WARREN  HASTINGS. 

( From  “ Memoirs  by  Warren  Hastings,  1786.”) 


CHAI'r  SINGH. 


1 37 


In  India  Hastings  was  now  unfettered  ; he  but 
needed  funds  for  the  pressing  public  necessities. 
Chait  Singh,  Raja  of  Benares,  had  become  feudatory 
to  the  Company,  undoubtedly  bound  to  render,  in 
addition  to  his  annual  tribute  of  22  lakhs  of  rupees, 
service  and  aid  in  case  of  war.  The  time  had  come 
when  he  should  join  in  the  general  defence  of  the 
ruling  power,  so  Hastings  called  on  him  to  pay  a 
contribution  of  5 lakhs  of  rupees  for  aid  against  their 
common  enemies.  On  the  demand  being  repeated  in 
the  following  year,  Chait  Singh  strove  to  evade  pay- 
ment by  sending  2 lakhs  of  rupees  privately  to  the 
Governor-General  as  a bribe  to  abstain  from  further 
demands.  After  some  delay  Hastings  paid  the 
money  into  the  public  treasury  and  peremptorily 
called  on  Chait  Singh  to  pay  up  in  full  all  arrears, 
and  further  to  supply  a force  of  2,000  cavalry  for 
general  defence.  Chait  Singh  pleaded  his  inability 
to  provide  either  troops  or  more  money,  whereon 
Hastings  imposed  on  him  a fine  of  50  lakhs  of 
rupees  for  delay,  and  proceeded  himself  to  Benares 
to  collect  the  amount.  The  subsequent  impeachment 
of  Hastings  by  the  House  of  Commons  before  the 
House  of  Lords  was  due  to  the  amount  of  this  fine 
inflicted  by  Hastings  on  Chait  Singh.  When  the 
motion  for  the  impeachment  of  Hastings  was  before 
the  House  of  Commons,  Pitt  astounded  friends  and 
opponents  alike  by  unexpectedly  declaring  that  he 
would  vote  for  the  impeachment  because  he  con- 
sidered the  fine  unjust.  “ I therefore,”  he  said,  “ shall 
agree  to  the  motion  before  the  House.  But  I confine 
myself  solely  to  the  exorbitancy  of  the  fine,  approving 


WARREN  HASTINGS. 


I3» 

every  preceding  as  well  as  subsequent  part  of  Mr. 
Hastings’  conduct,  throughout  the  whole  transaction.” 

It  still  remains  one  of  the  mysteries  of  history 
why  Pitt  should  have  thus  sacrificed  Hastings  to  the 
malignity  of  his  enemies.  Pitt,  when  goaded  into 
anger  by  the  universal  condemnation  of  his  logic, 
rose  and  said,  “ I think  the  fine  of  five  hundred 
thousand  pounds  imposed  by  the  Governor-General 
on  Cheyt  Sing  exorbitant.  My  honourable  and 
noble  friends  think  otherwise.”  No  wonder  that 
Mr.  Dempster,  according  to  Wroxall,  “one  of  the 
most  conscientious  men  who  ever  sate  in  Parliament,” 
retorted,  “ Mr.  Hastings  has  been  the  saviour  of  our 
possessions  in  the  East ; and  if  he  merits  impeach- 
ment for  any  act  of  his  whole  life,  it  is  for  having 
been  so  weak  a man  as  to  return  to  this  country  with 
a very  limited  fortune.” 

When  Chait  Singh  would  not  pay  the  fine  he  was 
placed  under  arrest  by  Hastings  and  two  companies 
of  sepoys  were  directed  to  guard  him.  The  holy  city 
of  Benares  rose  in  fanatic  alarm.  Its  narrow  streets 
swarmed  with  bands  of  armed  men  loudly  calling 
for  the  release  of  their  Raja.  The  sepoy  guards, 
unprovided  with  ammunition,  were  all  ruthlessly 
massacred.  Reinforcements  hurrying  to  the  rescue 
were  fired  on  and  driven  back.  Hastings  in  the 
confusion  escaped  to  the  fortress  of  Chanar  on  the 
south  of  the  Ganges,  some  thirty  miles  distant  from 
Benares,  whence  with  evident  indifference  to  the 
emeute  which  surged  around  he  proceeded  to  issue 
directions  respecting  the  more  important  affairs  of 
the  Maratha  movements.  The  disturbance  was  soon 


BegAjms  of  OUDH. 


139 


quelled  : Chait  Singh  fled,  carrying  off  his  treasures, 
leaving  behind  a nephew  who  was  installed  as  Rajd, 
the  tribute  being  raised  by  the  addition  of  some 
£200,000. 

Oudh  had  next  to  be  forced  to  contribute  to  the 
general  defence  of  peace  and  security  against  the 
threatened  storm  of  anarchy. 

From  Oudh  a sum  of  over  one  million  sterling  (one 
and  a half  crores  of  rupees)  was  due  to  the  Company 
for  military  and  civil  charges.  When  the  Nawab 
Wazi'r  died,  in  1775,  he  left  treasures  amounting  to 
some  two  millions  sterling,  which  were  seized  by  his 
wife  and  mother,  known  to  history  as  the  Begams  of 
Oudh,  who  also  possessed  lands  yielding  a yearly 
income  of  £50,000. 

By  an  agreement  between  the  new  Nawab  Wazi'r, 
Asaf-ud-Daula,  and  Hastings  it  was  decided  that  the 
landed  estates  of  the  Begams  should  be  resumed  by 
the  Nawab  in  consequence  of  their  undoubted  partici- 
pation in  the  insurrection  at  Benares,  but  that  the 
revenues  accruing  from  the  estates  should  be  con- 
tinued to  them  for  life.  The  debts  due  to  the  Com- 
pany were  to  be  paid  from  the  treasures  left  by  the 
deceased  Nawdb  Wazi'r.  The  residence  of  the  Begams 
was  surrounded  by  British  troops,  and  the  custodians 
forced  to  surrender  upwards  of  one  million  sterling 
of  the  late  Nawdb  Wazir’s  hoarded  wealth.  The 
Company  was  enriched,  Asaf-ud-Daula  obtained  the 
lands  held  by  the  Begams,  and  in  return  presented 
Hastings  with  a gift  of  10  lakhs  of  rupees.  This 
gift,  according  to  the  custom  of  the  times,  might  have 
been  retained  by  Hastings  as  a private  donation. 


140 


WARREN  HASTINGS. 


He,  however,  reported  the  circumstance  to  the 
Directors,  asking  if  he  might  be  allowed  to  keep 
the  money — a request  to  which  the  Directors  curtly 
declined  to  accede. 

At  this  time  the  affairs  of  the  Company  were 
in  a condition  from  which  Hastings  could  alone 
retrieve  them.  As  he  wrote,  “ I much  fear,  that 
it  is  not  understood  as  it  ought  to  be,  how  near  the 
Company’s  existence  has  on  many  occasions  vibrated 
to  the  edge  of  perdition,  and  that  it  has  at  all  times 
been  suspended  by  a thread  so  fine  that  the  touch 
of  chance  might  break,  or  the  breath  of  opinion  dis- 
solve it : and  instantaneous  will  be  its  fall  whenever  it 
shall  happen.  May  God  in  His  mercy  long  avert  it.” 

Hastings  had  secured  Bengal  and  Behar,  but  round 
Bombay  the  Marathas  held  sway,  and  Haidar  All 
was  threatening  the  south.  At  Poona  Ragunath 
Rao,  commonly  known  as  Raghuba,  had  assassinated 
his  nephew,  the  ruling  Peshwa,  and  assumed  the 
sovereignty  for  himself.  His  hopes  were,  however, 
dashed  to  the  ground  when  the  widow  of  the  pre- 
ceding Peshwa  was  declared  to  have  given  birth  to 
an  heir,  brother  to  the  prince  whom  Raghuba  had 
removed  from  his  path.  Raghuba  was  driven  forth 
from  Poona,  and  fled  to  the  English  at  Bombay, 
promising  them,  in  return  for  their  aid  in  re- 
storing him  to  the  Peshwaship  or  hereditary  rule 
over  the  Marathas,  the  harbour  of  Bassein  and  the 
island  of  Salsette,  possessions  the  English  had  long 
coveted.  The  bribe  was  too  tempting  to  resist,  so 
the  Government  of  Bombay  determined  to  become 
King-makers  on  its  own  account.  At  the  fatal  field 


WARGAON. 


141 

of  Arras  the  Marathas  and  English  met  for  the  first 
time  in  their  long  series  of  conflicts  ; Colonel  Keating 
winning  the  day  but  losing  222  of  his  men. 

Bombay  was,  however,  subordinated  to  Calcutta, 
so  Francis — who  had  not  yet  been  removed  from 
the  path  of  Hastings — and  his  supporters  directed  that 
the  war  should  be  suspended,  ’Bassein  surrendered, 
and  12  lakhs  of  rupees  paid  to  the  Marathas  for 
the  expenses  they  had  incurred.  The  truce  did 
not  last  long.  The  Marathas  sought  French  aid, 
and  the  Bombay  Government  again  espoused  the 
cause  of  Raghuba.  Four  thousand  men  and  six 
hundred  Europeans  were  despatched  from  Bombay 
under  Colonels  Egerton,  Cockburn,  and  Camac  to 
force  the  English  alliance  and  Raghuba  on  the 
Poona  regency,  while  Hastings  sent  an  envoy  to 
win  the  Bhonsla  ruler  of  Nagpur  from  joining  the 
Western  Marathas.  By  slow  marches  the  Bombay 
troops  arrived  within  eighteen  miles  of  Poona,  were 
there  surrounded  and  obliged  to  retreat.  At 
Wargaon,  an  unconditional  surrender  was  made,  the 
English  commanders  agreeing  to  give  back  all  their 
acquisitions  and  surrender  two  hostages  for  the 
carrying  out  of  this  disgraceful  convention.  The 
Bombay  Government  had  framed  their  policy  and 
shown  their  incapacity  to  carry  it  to  a successful 
conclusion  ; the  Marathas  had  easily  triumphed  over 
them  in  diplomacy  and  warfare.  Removed  though 
Hastings  was  from  the  scene  of  action  by  over  one 
thousand  miles,  he  resolved  to  venture  on  the  most 
brilliant  military  movement  ever  conceived,  up  to  that 
time,  by  the  English  in  India.  Collecting  together 


142 


WARREN  HASTINGS. 


nine  battalions  of  native  troops,  composed  of  6,234 
men,  a body  of  sepoy  cavalry  from  Oudh,  and  artillery, 
he  placed  them  in  charge  of  Colonel  Leslie  and  103 
English  officers,  and  bade  them  march  across  India, 
accompanied  by  some  30,000  camp-followers,  to  the 
aid  of  the  Bombay  Government. 

Colonel  Leslie  was  soon  replaced  by  an  abler 
officer,  General  Goddard,  who,  hearing  of  the  defeat 
of  Egerton,  made  his  way  to  Surat,  avoiding  the 
Maratha  force  at  Poona.  This  march  might  well 
have  been  considered  impossible,  or,  in  Hastings’  own 
words,  “ astonishing  and  impracticable  ” ; it,  however, 
as  he  said,  “ has  shown  what  the  British  are  capable 
of  effecting.”  The  force  marched  on  into  Gujarat, 
took  possession  of  its  capital  Ahmadabad,  and  then 
falling  unexpectedly  on  the  Maratha  camp  put  it  to 
rout.  • 

Through  Central  India  Captain  Popham  had  been 
directed  to  march  towards  Gwalior,  a fortress  of  the 
Rana  of  Gohad  held  by  the  Marathas  under  Sindhia, 
deemed  so  safe  from  assault  that  Sir  Eyre  Coote 
declared  it  would  be  little  less  than  insanity  to 
advance  to  its  attack.  For  two  months  Popham 

watched  the  precipitous  rock  on  which  the  fort 
was  built,  devising  means  whereby  he  might  assault 
it.  On  the  night  of  the  3rd  of  August,  1780,  two 
companies  of  sepoys,  led  by  Captain  Bruce,  brother 
of  the  Abyssinian  explorer,  and  four  lieutenants,  sup- 
ported by  twenty  Europeans  and  two  battalions  of 
native  troops,  advanced  to  the  foot  of  the  fortress. 
Their  feet  were  wrapped  in  cotton,  and  by  means  of 
ladders  they  silently  scaled  the  first  defence,  a solid 


CAPTURE  OF  GWALIOR. 


143 


wall  of  smooth  rock,  sixteen  feet  high.  Above,  a 
steep  ascent  of  forty  yards  was  climbed.  A few  of 
the  sepoys  were  then  drawn  up  a scarped  wall  thirty' 
feet  high  by  ropes  let  down  by  some  spies,  and  when 
joined  by’  the  rest  rushed  forward  and  overpowered 
the  garrison,  gaining  possession  of  the  famed  fortress. 

The  fall  of  his  stronghold  dismayed  Sindhia,  and 
for  the  first  time  taught  the  Marathas  that  their  efforts 
to  found  their  fortunes  on  the  break  up  of  the  Mughal 
Empire  were  futile,  for  a foe  was  in  their  midst  whom 
they  could  never  hope  to  overcome.  Colonel  Camac 
had  in  the  west  retreated  through  Mahva  before 
Sindhia,  only  to  double  back,  on  the  night  of  the 
24th  of  March,  fall  on  the  Maratha  camp,  which  he 
utterly  routed,  slaying  numbers,  seizing  the  standards, 
thirteen  guns,  and  all  the  enemy’s  camels  and  ele- 
phants. Goddard’s  troops  had,  however,  been  driven 
from  Poona  down  the  Bore  Ghat  with  a loss  of 
nearly  five  hundred  men,  including  eighteen  European 
officers,  by  an  overwhelming  force  of  sixty  thousand 
Marathas. 

Sindhia  was,  however,  anxious  to  make  peace,  so 
that  he  might  stand  forth  as  leader  of  the  Maratha 
confederacy,  assured  of  the  goodwill  of  the  English 
with  whom  he  negotiated  terms. 

The  Bombay  Government  obtained  the  islands  of 
Salsette  and  Elephanta,  the  Marathas  agreed  to  make 
no  alliances  or  friendships  with  any  European  nation 
except  the  English,  the  Gaekwar  received  back 
Gujarat,  Sindhia  retained  all  his  possess'ons  west 
of  the  Jumna,  the  fortress  of  Gwalior  was  sur- 
rendered to  the  Rana  of  Gohad  and  Raghuba  set 


144 


WARREN  HASTINGS. 


aside  with  a pension  of  25,000  rupees  per  month. 
The  English  influence  was  thus  established  by 
Hastings  across  the  whole  of  India  from  Calcutta 
to  Bombay,  the  general  pacification  being  concluded 
in  May,  1782,  by  the  Treaty  of  Salbai. 

In  the  meantime  Haidar  All  in  the  south — enraged 
by  the  neglect  of  the  Madras  Government  to  defend 
him,  according  to  an  agreement  of  1769,  from  the 
attacks  of  the  Marathas — had  increased  his  army, 
officered  it  with  French  and  European  soldiers  of 
fortune,  waiting  his  time  for  revenge  on  his  faithless 
allies.  On  the  outbreak  of  the  war  between  France 
and  England,  Hastings  seized  not  only  the  French 
settlements  at  Chandranagar  and  Pondicherry,  but 
also  Mahe  on  the  west  coast.  From  Mahe  Haidar 
Ah'  had  drawn  his  supplies,  from  Mahe  came  the 
French  officers  who  trained  his  troops  and  the  French 
soldiers  who  manned  his  artillery.  His  wrath  was 
further  raised  from  the  fact  that  Mahe  was  within 
his  territories,  and  he  had  vowed  to  sweep  into  the 
sea  any  of  the  English  who  dared  to  interfere  either 
with  it  or  with  his  allies  the  French. 

Collecting  together  a huge  army  of  1 5,000  infantry, 
2,800  cavalry,  4,000  armed  retainers,  and  accompanied 
by  the  strongest  artillery  then  in  India,  and  400 
French  and  European  officers,  he  hastened  down 
from  the  Highlands  of  Mysore  to  spread  over  the 
peaceful  villages  of  the  lowland  plains  a devastating 
war  with  all  the  suddenness  and  violence  of  a 
monsoon  storm.  The  Madras  Government  had  no 
money,  and  but  6,000  troops  to  oppose  the 
fierce  Mysore  monarch.  From  the  fort  of  St.  George 


HAIDAR  Al.I. 


145 


the  English  merchants  saw  in  the  night-time 
the  sky  reddened  for  miles  around  with  the  flames 
from  burning  villages  and  their  own  residences.  A 
force  of  3.700  men,  marching  down  along  the  coast 
from  Guntur  under  Colonel  Baillie,  was  surrounded 
at  Perambakam  and  slaughtered,  only  300  officers  and 
soldiers  escaping  to  meet  with  a worse  fate  in  the 
dungeons  of  the  implacable  Mysore  chieftain.  In 
chains  and  misery  they  fretted  out  their  lives  ; the 
mother  of  Sir  David  Baird,  remembering  the  irascibility 
of  her  captive  son,  is  famed  for  having  remarked,  with 
Spartan  simplicity,  on  hearing  of  his  fate,  that  she 
was  sorry  for  the  man  who  was  chained  to  “our 
Davie.” 

Sir  Hector  Munro,  the  hero  of  Baksar,  who,  on 
hearing  of  the  defeat,  marched  out  from  Madras 
with  five  thousand  troops,  had  to  throw  his  guns  into 
a tank  and  find  safety  in  flight  back  to  Fort  St. 
George.  Lieutenant  Flint,  emulating  the  fame  of 
Clive  at  Arcot,  held  the  fort  of  Wandewash  with 
three  hundred  sepoys  against  the  victorious  forces  of 
Haidar  Ah'. 

Not  only  had  Hastings  extricated  the  Bombay 
Government  from  its  difficulties  with  the  Marathas, 
but  now  in  the  south  he  had  to  uphold  the  effete 
Madras  authorities  by  sending  men  and  money  from 
Bengal.  Just  as  in  1780  he  had  despatched  Colonel 
Goddard  at  the  head  of  an  army  to  fight  the  Marathas 
in  the  west,  so  now  he  sent  Colonel  Pearse  to  march, 
even  further,  at  the  head  of  five  thousand  men,  to 
fight  Haidar  Ah'  in  the  south,  while  by  sea  he  sent 
the  funds  he  had  gathered  together  and  the  one  man 

1 ( 


146 


WARREN  HASTINGS. 


he  could  trust,  the  veteran  Commander  Sir  Eyre 
Coote  who  had  succeeded  General  Clavering  in  the 
Council. 

Flint  was  relieved  at  Wandewash,  and  the  stores 
landed  at  Pondicherry  by  the  French  admiral  for 
the  use  of  Haidar  Ah'  were  destroyed. 

Coote  then  moved  with  his  small  force  to  Cud- 
dalore,  where  he  was  hemmed  in  on  the  sea-coast 
between  the  overwhelming  army  of  Haidar  Ah' 
and  the  ships  of  the  French.  In  vain  Haidar 
Ah'  prayed  the  French  to  stand  by  and  strike  an 
annihilating  blow  at  the  outwitted  English  com- 
mander ; the  admiral,  Count  d’Orves,  sailed  away, 
losing  his  final  chance  of  establishing  the  influence 
of  France  in  South  India.  Amid  the  sand-heaps,  at 
Porto  Novo,  Coote  won  his  glorious  victory  over  the 
Mysore  troops,  of  whom  upwards  of  ten  thousand 
were  slain. 

By  August,  1781,  Coote  was  joined  by  the  forces 
from  the  north,  under  Colonel  Pearse,  whose  sepoys 
suffered  terribly  from  cholera  on  their  journey  through 
the  coast  districts.  At  Pollilur,  near  the  scene  of 
Colonel  Baillie’s  defeat,  Haidar  Ah'  was  again 
defeated,  driven  from  the  pass  of  Sholinghar  and 
obliged  to  raise  the  siege  of  Vellore,  which  important 
fortress  Coote  had  relieved.  A terrible  disaster 
befel  the  English  troops  at  the  beginning  of  the 
year  1782.  A force  under  Colonel  Braithwaite  of 
100  English  and  1,800  sepoys  was  surrounded  by 
an  army  under  Tipii,  the  son  of  Haidar  Ah',  assisted 
by  400  Frenchmen.  All  would  have  perished  were  it 
not  that  the  French  gallantly  rushed  forward  and  saved 


SIR  EYRE  COOTE. 


14  7 


some  of  the  English  officers  from  the  fierce  slaughter 
of  the  Mysore  soldiers. 

On  the  8th  of  April  of  the  same  year  Bussy 
landed  at  Porto  Novo  with  1,200  new  French  troops, 
seized  Cuddalore  and  there  entrenched  himself, 
giving  the  veteran  Coote  an  opportunity  of  fighting 
his  last  fight  against  Haidar  Ah'  and  Tipu,  whom 
he  drove  back  from  their  chief  arsenal  in  the  plains, 
the  fort  of  Arni. 

The  end  was,  however,  at  hand.  On  the  7th  of 
December,  1782,  the  fierce  and  brave  Haidar  Ah' 
died,  in  his  last  words  praying  his  son  Tipu  to  make 
peace  with  the  English,  whose  power  neither  the 
defeat  of  Baillie  nor  of  Braithwaite  could  lessen. 
Coote  had  repaired  to  Calcutta  to  recruit  his 
health,  and  on  his  return  the  ship  in  which  he 
sailed  was  chased  by  four  French  frigates.  Worn 
out  by  fatigue  and  anxiety  the  brave  old  general  fell 
paralysed  as  he  watched  the  chase,  and  died  two  days 
after  he  reached  Madras. 

On  the  seas  duel  after  duel  had  taken  place 
between  the  French  Admiral  Suffren,  and  the 
English  Admiral  Sir  Edward  Hughes.  In  one  of 
the  engagements  the  French  had  twelve  ships  and 
the  English  but  nine,  in  another  the  English  had 
eighteen  and  the  French  fifteen.  Were  it  not  that 
Admiral  Suffren’s  skilful  tactics  were  frustrated 
by  his  incompetent  and  disloyal  captains,  the 
English  admiral’s  dogged  tenacity  and  determination 
to  fight  his  ships  till  they  sank  would  scarcely 
have  saved  the  greater  part  of  his  fleet  from 
disaster.  As  it  was  the  French  admiral  was  wear y 


148 


J VA  RRE.V  HA  S T/XGS. 


of  the  war,  and  when  the  news  of  the  Peace  of 
Versailles  reached  him  in  September,  1783,  it  was 
with  a sigh  of  relief  that  he  exclaimed,  “ God  be 
praised  for  the  peace  ! for  it  was  clear  that  in  India, 
though  we  had  the  means  to  impose  the  law,  all 
would  have  been  lost.” 

On  the  shore  the  French,  under  Bussy,  were  still 
entrenched  at  Cuddalore,  where  the  English  had  lost 
heavily  and  were  in  want  of  provisions.  On  the  1st 
of  July  the  welcome  flag  of  truce  was  hung  out  by 
the  French,  announcing  the  Peace  and  proclaiming 
that  they  could  no  longer  fight  for  Tipu  against  the 
English. 

Tipu  had  been  winning  back  the  territories  of  his 
father  on  the  west  coast  ; he  had  captured  Manga- 
lore, gallantly  held  for  nine  months  by  Captain 
Campbell,  and  sent  the  English  officers  and  men 
in  chains  to  Seringapatam,  deporting  some  thirty 
thousand  of  the  inhabitants  of  Kanara  and  Malabar 
to  Mysore,  where  they  were  forciby  made  Muham- 
madans. 

Colonel  P'ullerton  had,  however,  approached  with 
an  overwhelming  force  within  reach  of  Seringapatam, 
when  Lord  Macartney  directed  all  hostilities  to  be 
suspended,  and  sent  envoys  to  negotiate  a peace  with 
Tipu.  On  the  11th  of  March,  1784,  the  Mysore 
monarch  consented  to  sign  a treaty  whereby  a mutual 
restoration  of  all  conquests  made  during  the  war 
was  agreed  to,  Tipu  further  promising  to  surrender 
upwards  of  one  thousand  Englishmen  and  one  thou- 
sand sepoys  held  chained  in  his  mountain  prisons 
in  Mysore. 


HASTINGS  LEAVES  INDIA. 


149 


The  work  of  Hastings  was  accomplished.  Bom- 
bay was  saved,  the  Marathas  held  in  check,  Sindhia 
reconciled,  the  Nizam  made  an  ally,  and  the 
Madras  Government  supported  in  its  weakness.  As 
he  said  before  the  House  of  Commons,  in  proud 
disdain  of  its  censures,  “ I enlarged  and  gave  shape 
and  consistency  to  the  dominion  you  held  there  ; I 
preserved  it ; I sent  forth  its  armies  with  an  effectual 
but  economical  hand,  through  unknown  and  hostile 
regions,  to  the  support  of  your  other  possessions  ; to 
the  retrieval  of  one  from  degradation  and  dishonour  ; 
and  of  the  other  from  utter  loss  and  subjection.  I 
maintained  the  wars  which  were  of  your  formation, 
or  that  of  others,  not  of  mine.”  And  this  at  a 
time  when  all  from  whom  he  might  have  expected 
some  measure  of  support,  sedulously  laboured  to 
“ weaken  my  authority,  to  destroy  my  influence  and 
to  embarrass  all  my  measures.”  Yet  in  1782  the 
Directors  had  resolved  to  recall  him,  alleging  that 
“ he  had  acted  in  a manner  repugnant  to  the  honour 
and  policy  of  this  nation,  and  thereby  brought  great 
calamities  on  India  and  enormous  expenses  on  the 
Company,”  a resolution  with  which,  however,  the  pro- 
prietors refused  to  agree. 

After  the  general  pacification,  Hastings  waited  but 
to  place  the  financial  affairs  of  Benares  and  Oudh  on 
a satisfactory  basis  before  he  finally  determined  to 
return  home  and  join  his  wife,  whom,  next  to  the 
honour  and  welfare  of  his  country,  he  dreamed  of 
hourly. 

His  determination  was  quickened  when,  on  the 
20th  of  December,  1784,  he  received  a draft  of  Pitt’s 


150 


WARREN  HASTINGS. 


new  India  Bill,  curtailing  the  power  of  the  Governor- 
General,  and  vesting  the  entire  civil,  military,  and 
revenue  affairs  of  the  Company  in  the  hands  of  six 
commissioners  appointed  by  the  Crown. 

The  sad  story  yet  remains  to  be  fairly  and  ade- 
quately told  of  how  Hastings  was  sacrificed  by  Pitt, 
delivered  over  to  the  malignity  of  Francis  and  those 
whose  self-seeking  intrigues  and  narrow-witted  policy 
he  had  so  sternly  repressed  and  so  proudly  ignored. 
It  remains  to  be  told  by  some  writer  with  the 
accuracy  of  to-day,  yet  with  all  the  imagination  of 
a Macaulay,  how  unjustly  he  suffered  under  the  per- 
fervid  eloquence  of  Burke  and  melodramatic  rhetoric 
of  Sheridan,  how  nobly  he  bore  the  disgrace  of  seven 
years  of  criminal  trial  before  an  incompetent  tribunal 
which  perfunctorily  pronounced  him  not  guilty  of  the 
charges  conjured  up  against  him  by  the  malice  of  his 
enemies. 

His  life,  his  heroism,  his  proud  reserve,  and  confident 
assurance  that  all  his  failings  and  faults  arose  from  a 
single-minded  desire  to  carry  out  the  intentions  of 
his  time,  are  summed  up  in  the  words  by  which  he 
declared  his  own  vindication  and  his  accusers’  con- 
demnation : “ I gave  you  all ; and  you  have  rewarded 
me  with  confiscation,  disgrace,  and  a life  of  impeach- 
ment.” 


VII. 

LORD  CORNWALLIS  AND  SIR  JOHN  SHORE. 

In  1782  Lord  Cornwallis,  then  a prisoner  of  war 
on  parole,  after  the  capitulation  of  Yorktown  to 
Washington,  was  asked  by  Lord  Shelburne  if  he  would 
proceed  to  India  as  Governor-General.  Lord  Corn- 
wallis curtly  refused,  for,  as  he  said,  he  saw  no  reason 
why  he  should  run  the  risk  of  being  “ disgraced  to 
all  eternity”  in  efforts  “to  fight  Nabob  princes,  his 
own  Council,  and  the  Supreme  Government,  whatever 
it  may  be.” 

When  the  India  Bill  of  Pitt  placed  the  chief  power 
in  the  hands  of  the  Governor-General  and  three 
Councillors,  and  a subsequent  Act  gave  the  Governor- 
General  authority  to  act  in  cases  of  emergency  with- 
out the  concurrence,  or  even  in  opposition  to  the 
opinion  of  his  Council,  Lord  Cornwallis  consented  to 
assume  the  office.  One  very  important  limitation  of 
his  powers  had,  however,  been  laid  down  by  Parlia- 
ment. It  had  been  enacted  that  British  rule  in  India 
should  not  be  extended  further  than  over  the  terri- 
tories acquired  by  Clive  and  consolidated  by  Hastings. 
The  wording  of  the  Act  was  peremptory  : “ Whereas 

iSl 


152  LORD  CORNWALLIS  AND  SIR  JOHN  SHORE. 


to  pursue  schemes  of  Conquest  and  Extension  of 
Dominion  in  India,  are  measures  repugnant  to  the 
Wish,  the  Honour,  and  the  Policy  of  this  Nation  . . . 
it  shall  not  be  lawful  for  the  Governor-General  and 
Council  of  Fort  William,  without  the  express  com- 
mand and  authority  of  the  said  Court  of  Directors, 
or  of  the  Secret  Committee  of  the  said  Court  of 
Directors,  in  any  case,  except  where  hostilities  have 
actually  been  commenced  or  preparations  made  for 
the  commencement  of  hostilities,  against  the  British 
Nation  in  India,  or  against  some  of  the  Princes  or 
States  dependent  thereon,  or  whose  territories  the 
said  united  Company  shall  be  at  such  time  engaged 
by  any  subsisting  Treaty  to  defend  or  guaranty, 
either  to  declare  War  or  commence  hostilities,  or 
enter  into  any  Treaty  for  making  War  against  any  of 
the  Country  Princes  or  States  in  India.” 

This  Act  had  but  little  effect  in  checking  war  or 
in  staying  the  extension  of  the  Company’s  possessions. 
By  the  Treat}'  of  Mangalore,  the  Raja  of  Travancore 
had  become  an  ally  of  the  English,  consequently,  on 
his  being  attacked,  in  1790,  by  Tipu  Sultan,  Lord 
Cornwallis  considered  that  the  terms  of  the  Act 
justified  him  in  declaring  war  against  the  common 
enemy,  the  Mysore  ruler. 

The  Nizam  of  Haidarabad  was  summoned  to  send 
aid  ; the  Marathas,  hoping  to  recover  the  territories 
lying  between  the  Kistna  and  Tungabhadra  which 
Raghuba  had  surrendered  to  Haidar  All,  expressed 
their  eagerness  to  join  in  the  fra}'. 

In  January,  1791,  Lord  Cornwallis,  as  Commander  - 
in-Chief,  took  command  of  the  assembled  troops  before 


“tippoo  sultaun.” 

(From  Beatson’s  “ War  with  Tippoo  Sultaun.’’) 


154  LORD  CORNWALLIS  AND  SIR  JOHN  SHORE. 

the  fort  of  Vellore.  Bangalore  was  first  captured, 
whereon  Tipu  put  to  death  nineteen  English  youths 
whom  he  still  held  captive  in  contravention  of  the 
treaty  of  1784.  Cornwallis,  not  waiting  for  his  Maratha 
allies,  hurried  on  to  Seringapatam,  the  inland  capital 
of  Mysore.  There  his  supplies  gradually  failed,  and, 
his  communications  being  cut  off,  he  was  obliged  to 
destroy  his  siege  trains,  throw  his  shot  into  a river,  and 
retreat  to  Bangalore.  General  Abercromby,  who  was 
advancing  from  the  Malabar  coast,  had  to  abandon 
his  guns  at  the  top  of  the  mountain  passes  and  save 
his  contingent  by  retreating  to  the  plains.  So  far 
fortune  had  favoured  Tipu,  but  the  next  year  Corn- 
wallis captured  the  important  fortress  of  Nandidrug, 
situated  thirty  miles  from  Bangalore,  on  the  summit 
of  a steep  fortified  hill,  5,000  feet  above  the  sea  level. 
The  equally  important  fortress  of  Savandrug,  4,000 
feet  above  the  sea  level,  next  fell. 

The  united  forces  of  the  Nizdm  and  Cornwallis 
then  laid  siege  to  Seringapatam  ; the  Mardthds 
occupying  themselves  in  the  congenial  task  of 
raiding  the  Mysore  dominions  on  the  north  and 
north-east.  Hemmed  in  on  all  sides,  Tipu  Sultdn  had 
to  capitulate,  agree  to  surrender  half  his  territories  to 
be  divided  among  the  allies;  pay  a war  indemnity 
of  3,000,000  rupees,  release  all  the  prisoners  he  still 
retained,  and  deliver  up  his  two  sons  as  hostages  for 
the  due  observance  of  the  treaty. 

Far  more  important  than  this  war  with  Mysore 
was  the  Permanent  Settlement  of  the  land  revenues 
of  Bengal,  Behar,  and  Orissa. 

When  first  the  direct  control  of  the  collection  of 


PERMANENT  SETTLEMENT. 


155 


the  land  revenue  in  the  Company’s  possessions  was 
assumed  by  the  Government,  in  1772,  it  was  ascer- 
tained that  the  rayats,  or  cultivators,  had  been  in  the 
habit  of  paying  a fixed  share  of  the  produce,  either  in 
grain  or  in  money  value,  to  local  landholders  called 
Zamfndars.  Under  the  rule  of  the  Mughals  these 
Zamfndars  paid  the  Emperor  nine-tenths  of  what 
they  received,  retaining  one-tenth  for  themselves, 
being  obliged  to  render  true  accounts  of  their  receipts. 
They  possessed  the  power  of  levying  local  cesses,  they 
could  transfer  their  title  by  gift  or  sale,  and  on  death 
their  right  to  collect  the  revenue  passed  to  the  heir 
on  payment  of  a fine  or  present  to  the  Emperor. 
In  all  cases  where  it  was  deemed  advisable  to  set 
aside  the  Zamfndar  he  received  lands  or  money  by 
way  of  compensation  for  the  loss  of  his  rights. 

Hastings,  on  undertaking  the  management,  had 
leased  out  the  right  to  collect  the  land  revenues  for 
terms  of  five  and  ten  years  to  the  Zamfndars  or  to 
others  who  bid  for  the  office.  He  had  further  made 
the  Company’s  writers  collectors  of  the  Government 
share,  and  placed  controlling  officers  or  supervisors 
over  them,  while  local  Revenue  Councils  were  gradu- 
ally formed  for  the  chief  centres,  such  as  Dacca, 
Murshiddbdd  and  Patnd.  Finally  the  chief  super- 
vising revenue  authority  was  centralised  at  Calcutta, 
in  a Board  of  Revenue  of  which  the  Governor- 
General  was  a member. 

From  1777  to  1780  the  Zamfnddrs  were  granted 
annual  leases  to  collect  the  revenue  at  rates  calcu- 
lated on  those  previously  paid. 

These  rapid  changes  did  not  recommend  them- 


I56  LORD  CORNWALLIS  AND  SIR  JOHN  SHORE. 


selves  to  an  English  Parliament  anxious  to  preserve 
the  rights  of  the  Zamindars,  which  they  looked  upon 
as  similar  to  those  of  British  landlords.  Accordingly, 
in  1784,  by  24  Geo.  cap.  25,  it  was  enacted  that, 
whereas  “ divers  Rajahs,  Zamindars,  Polygars, 
Talookdars,  and  other  native  landholders  within  the 
British  territories  in  India,  have  been  unjustly  de- 
prived of,  or  compelled  to  abandon  or  relinquish, 
their  respective  Lands,  Jurisdictions,  Rights  and 
Privileges,”  the  Court  of  Directors  should  take 
measures,  for  “establishing,  upon  principles  of 
Moderation  and  Justice,  the  permanent  Rules  by 
which  their  respective  Tributes,  Rents,  and  Services 
shall  be  in  future  rendered  and  paid  to  the  said 
United  Company  by  the  said  Rajahs,  Zamindars,  &c.” 

The  Court  of  Directors  in  their  Despatch  of  the 
1 2th  of  April,  1786,  went  no  further  than  to  direct 
that  a ten  years’  settlement  should  be  made  with  the 
local  Zamindars. 

Lord  Cornwallis,  with  the  assistance  of  Mr.  John 
Shore,  a Bengal  civilian,  afterwards  Lord  Teign- 
mouth,  studied  closely,  from  1786  to  1790,  the  whole 
question  of  land  revenue  in  Bengal.  In  1789  a pre- 
liminary ten  years’  settlement  was  made  with  the 
Zamindars,  the  amount  to  be  paid  by  them  to  the 
Company  being  determined  from  an  examination  of 
the  old  accounts  and  the  payments  previously  made. 
In  1793  this  settlement  was  made  permanent,  and  the 
amount  to  be  paid  by  the  Zamindars  fixed  in  per- 
petuity at  a total  sum  of  about  three  millions  sterling. 
While  the  Zamindars  were  thus  allowed  to  gain  the 
full  benefit  of  the  increased  rental  accruing  from  im- 


PER.  1 1A  NEN  T SET  T LEM  EX  T. 


157 


proved  cultivation  and  from  new  lands  being  brought 
under  tillage,  as  well  as  from  advances  in  price  of 
produce  due  to  improved  means  of  communication 
and  other  causes,  the  State  was  for  ever  debarred 
from  participating  in  the  gain  from  this  increasing 
unearned  increment.  On  the  other  hand,  only  such 
cultivators  as  could  prove  an  hereditary  right  were 
granted  the  security  of  holding  at  a fixed  rental, 
while  the  Zamindars  were  empowered  to  raise  the 
customary  rates  paid  by  others  by  means  of  a civil 
suit.  The  loss  to  the  State  can  be  estimated  from 
the  fact  that  at  present,  while  the  Zamindars  pay  a 
revenue  of  but  three  and  a quarter  millions,  the 
annual  rental  is  upwards  of  thirteen  millions  sterling. 

The  immediate  result  to  the  Zamindars  was 
disastrous,  for,  possessing  insufficient  powers  to  re- 
cover the  rent  from  the  cultivators,  they  were  unable 
to  pay  the  State  demands,  and  their  rights  to  collect 
the  revenue  were  sold  wholesale  in  order  that  the 
amounts  they  had  guaranteed  might  be  realised.  As 
a matter  of  fact,  in  a very  short  space  of  time  the 
former  hereditary  right  to  collect  the  land  revenue 
was  sold  away  from  the  ancient  Zamindars  into  the 
hands  of  new  leaseholders. 

The  tenants  suffered  more  than  all.  Those  who 
could  not  show  an  hereditary  right  to  hold  at  the 
old  rate  of  assessment  had  little  remedy  against  being 
rack-rented,  while  on  failure  to  pay  the  rent  de- 
manded, their  property  was  liable  to  distraint  and  they 
themselves  to  be  thrust  into  prison.  This  deplor- 
able state  of  affairs  continued  until  the  Bengal  Land 
Act  of  1859  removed  some  of  the  evils,  though  the 


158  LORD  CORNWALLIS  AND  SIR  JOHN  SHORE. 

main  faults  of  the  system  continue  to  the  present  day. 
By  this  Act  cultivators  holding  land  since  1793  were 
to  possess  their  tenements  without  the  Zamindars 
having  power  to  raise  the  rental  ; all  cultivators 
holding  land  for  twenty  years  were  to  be  presumed 
to  have  held  since  1793,  unless  the  Zamindar  could 
prove  the  contrary  ; while  all  those  holding  for 
less  than  twelve  years  were  left  to  form  contracts 
respecting  their  rental  as  best  they  could  with  the 
Zamindars.  This  last  class  of  tenants — those  holding 
for  less  than  twelve  years — were,  by  the  Bengal 
Tenancy  Act  of  1885,  allowed  to  claim  compensation 
for  improvements  they  had  made  in  their  holdings,  as 
well  as  for  loss  by  disturbance  in  case  they  were 
obliged  to  relinquish  their  lands  in  consequence  of 
excessive  advancement  of  rent. 

This  first  essay  of  the  British  in  India  in  the 
making  of  land-laws,  cannot  be  held  to  have  been 
particularly  successful.  It  has  excluded  the  Govern- 
ment from  participating  in  the  ever-increasing  pros- 
perity accruing  from  peace  and  the  development  of  the 
chief  source  of  wealth  of  the  country,  its  agricultural 
produce ; it  has  not  secured  to  the  cultivators  their 
full  share  of  these  benefits,  whereby  a contented 
and  prosperous  community  might  have  been  reared, 
while  the  Zamindars  have  gained  an  enormous  in- 
crease of  wealth  without  any  exertion  on  their  part 
and  without  any  incentive  to  apply  it  to  the  welfare 
of  their  tenants  or  the  general  prosperity  of  the  com- 
munity. 

More  successful  were  the  efforts  made  by  Corn- 
wallis to  establish  on  a new  basis  the  entire  judicial 


EXCLUSIVE  RIGHTS  OF  THE  COMPANY. 


I 59 


system  in  force  in  the  Company’s  dominions.  In 
each  district,  or  chief  city,  Civil  Courts  were  estab- 
lished, presided  over  by  one  of  the  Company’s 
senior  writers,  assisted  by  a junior  writer  and  a 
registrar.  Four  Appellate  or  Provincial  Courts  were 
established  in  Calcutta,  Patna,  Dacca,  and  Mur- 
shidabad,  presided  over  by  three  judges  and  two 
junior  European  assistants,  learned  Hindu  and 
Muhammadan  lawyers  being  attached  to  expound 
the  native  law.  From  these  local  courts  appeals 
wrere  heard  by  the  Sadr  Diwam  Adalat,  or  Presidency 
Court,  presided  over  by  a Chief  Justice  and  Puisne 
Judges.  For  the  administration  of  criminal  justice 
the  judges  of  the  Provincial  Courts  went  on  periodical 
circuits  of  jail  delivery,  appeals  being  allowed  to  a 
Central  Appellate  Court,  or  Nizamat  Adalat,  presided 
over  by  three  judges,  assisted  by  natives  who  ex- 
pounded the  Hindu  and  Muhammadan  law. 

For  these  labours  Lord  Cormvallis  was  allotted,  on 
his  retirement  from  India  in  1793,  a pension  of 
£5,000  a year,  and  the  Directors  ordered  that  his 
statue  should  be  placed  in  the  India  House,  so  that 
“ his  great  services  might  ever  be  held  in  remem- 
brance.” 

In  the  same  year  the  exclusive  trading  rights  of 
the  Company  to  the  East  wrere  extended  for  a further 
period  of  tw’enty  years,  with  the  important  proviso 
that  private  individuals  might  be  allowed  to  trade  to 
the  extent  of  3,000  tons  of  shipping. 

Sir  John  Shore,  the  successor  of  Lord  Cornwallis 
ruled  as  Governor-General  from  1793  to  1798. 
During  his  tenure  of  office  the  troops  of  the  Nizam 


160  LORD  CORNWALLIS  AND  SIR  JOHN  SHORE. 


of  Haidarabad  met  with  an  overwhelming  defeat 
from  the  Marathas  on  the  fatal  field  of  Kurdla.  As 
a result  the  Nizam  once  more  commenced  to  enlist 
French  troops  whom  he  placed  under  the  command 
of  the  famed  Raymond,  with  permission  to  carry  the 
colours  of  the  French  Republic,  and  bear  the  cap  of 
liberty  on  their  regimental  buttons. 

In  Oudh  the  reigning  Nawab  Wazir  died  and  a 
new  claimant,  Saadut  Ah',  was  installed.  The  annual 
subsidy  to  the  Company  was  raised  to  £760,000 
and  a special  donation  of  2 lakhs  of  rupees 
claimed,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that,  two  years 
before,  the  Nawab  Wazir  had  agreed  to  pay  for  four 
regiments  of  cavalry  instead  of  the  two  he  was 
previously  obliged  to  retain. 

All  these  events  were  but  preparatory  to  the  many 
changes  that  took  place  during  the  administration  of 
the  Great  Proconsul,  the  Marquess  Wellesley,  who 
succeeded  Sir  John  Shore  as  Governor-General  in 
1798  and  ruled  until  1805. 


VIII. 

ESTABLISHMENT  OF  BRITISH  SUPREMACY — 
MARQUESS  WELLESLEY. 

( ! 798 1805.) 

WITH  the  advent  of  Lord  Mornington — or,  as  he 
is  better  known,  the  Marquess  Wellesley — the  cold 
touch  of  the  iron  hand  of  the  British  rule  was  felt 
for  the  first  time  by  the  native  princes  who  still  held 
sway  in  the  land  of  their  forefathers  surrounded  by 
all  the  glamour  and  pomp  of  an  Oriental  despotism. 
The  insanely  vaunting  Sultan  of  Mysore,  the  proud 
Nizam  of  Haidarabad,  the  puppet  Nawab  Wazfr  of 
Oudh,  the  fierce  Maratha  chiefs  Sindhia,  Holkar,  the 
Bhonsla,  the  Gaekwar,  and  the  Peshwa,  were  one  and 
all  forced  to  bow  their  heads  before  the  imperious 
dictates  of  the  new  Governor-General.  The  aged 
Emperor  Shah  Alam,  deprived  of  his  eyesight  by 
the  savage  stab  from  the  dagger  of  the  insurgent 
Rohilla  barbarian  Ghulam  Kadir  Khan,  was  glad  to 
hide  himself  away  as  a pensioner  of  a race  his 
ancestors  were  wont  to  despise  as  low-caste  traders. 

On  the  foundations  of  the  British  Empire  in  India, 

j 'y  1^1 


GOVERNMENT  HOUSE,  CALCUTTA,  BUILT  BY  LORD  WELLESLEY. 

(From  Maria  Graham's  “Journal  of  a Residence  in  India.'') 


TIPU  SULTAN. 


163 


laid  by  Clive  and  secured  by  Hastings,  the  stately 
structure  of  British  supremacy  over  all  the  native 
powers  in  India  was  now  to  be  built.  The  new 
Governor-General,  assured  of  the  support  of  a strong 
war  ministry  at  home,  and  certain  of  the  friendship  of 
Pitt,  was  able,  without  fear  of  impeachment,  to  carry 
out  his  policy  of  making  every  ruling  prince  in  India 
subordinate  to,  and  dependent  on,  the  one  supreme 
British  Power.  This  policy  he  carried  out  ener- 
getically and  consistently,  notwithstanding  the  many 
remonstrances  and  rebukes  he  received  from  the 
Court  of  Directors,  all  of  which  he  treated  with  un- 
concealed contempt.  “ No  additional  outrage,  injury, 
or  insult,”  he  wrote,  “ which  can  issue  from  the  most 
loathsome  den  of  the  India  House  will  accelerate 
my  departure  when  the  public  safety  shall  appear  to 
require  my  aid.” 

The  first  to  fall  beneath  the  heavy  hand  of  the 
new  Governor-General  was  Tipu  Sultan,  the  Tiger  of 
Mysore.  Lord  Mornington  landed  at  Calcutta  on 
the  17th  of  May,  and  on  the  8th  of  June  he  received 
a paper  the  contents  of  which  sealed  the  fate  of  the 
ruler  of  Mysore.  It  was  a proclamation  from  the 
French  Governor  of  Mauritius,  or  Isle  of  France, 
announcing  that  ambassadors  had  been  received  from 
Tipu  asking  for  French  aid  to  drive  the  English  out 
of  India  and  calling  for  volunteers  to  join  in  the 
enterprise.  This  proclamation,  added  to  the  fear  that 
Buonaparte,  wearied  of  the  West,  would,  after  the 
conquest  of  Egypt,  seek  to  emulate  the  fame  of 
Alexander  the  Great  and  attempt  the  conquest  of 
India,  determined  Lord  Mornington  to  break  the 


164  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  BRITISH  SUPREMACY. 

power  of  Tipu  and  make  the  native  states  disband 
their  French  soldiers  and  dismiss  their  French  officers. 
In  order  to  carry  out  his  policy  the  Governor-General 
had  many  difficulties  to  overcome.  In  the  south  the 
Madras  Government,  dreading  to  rouse  the  wrath  of 
Tipu  by  making  any  effort  to  prepare  for  the  coming 
war,  reported  that  it  would  be  fully  six  months  before 
they  could  equip  an  army  and  place  it  in  the  field, 
while  the  new  Nawab  of  the  Karnatik,  not  only 
refused  aid  but  opened  up  a treasonable  correspon- 
dence with  Tipu. 

At  Haidarabad  the  forces  of  the  Nizam  consisted 
of  fourteen  thousand  mutinous  troops,  disciplined  by 
French  officers,  who  held  lands  as  security  for  their 
pay.  Captain,  afterwards  Sir  John,  Malcolm,  induced 
the  Nizam  to  enter  into  a secret  agreement,  whereby 
these  French  troops  were  to  be  replaced  by  six 
thousand  sepoys  and  artillery  commanded  by  English 
officers,  paid  for  by  a subsidy  of  201,425  rupees. 
The  French  officers  were  then  forced  to  surrender, 
and  were  ultimately  sent  home  to  France.  The  terri- 
tories of  the  Nizam  remained  safe  under  the  protec- 
tion of  the  Company,  and  the  Haidarabad  Subsidiary 
Force,  raised  to  twelve  thousand  in  1800,  has  since 
been  maintained  by  the  Nizam,  who  ceded  lands  for 
its  pay  and  maintenance. 

All  fear  of  a French  invasion  was  removed  when 
the  news  reached  India  that  the  French  fleet  had 
been  defeated  off  the  mouth  of  the  Nile  by  Nelson, 
nevertheless  the  Governor-General  was  determined  to 
deprive  the  native  states  of  their  French  officers  and 
to  continue  his  preparations  against  Mysore.  Tipu, 


MYSORE  WAR. 


165 


who  was  vainly  seeking  aid  from  the  Sultan  of 
Turkey,  the  Afghans,  and  Marathds,  replied  to  all 
the  letters  of  the  Governor-General  by  evasive  and 
flippant  answers  until  war  was  formally  declared 
against  him  on  the  22nd  of  February,  1799. 

Assisted  by  his  brother,  Colonel  Arthur  Wellesley, 
afterwards  Duke  of  Wellington,  who  had  arrived  in 
India  in  1796,  and  loyally  supported  by  Lord  Clive, 
the  Governor  of  Madras  and  son  of  the  Victor  of 
Plassey,  the  Governor-General  gathered  together  in 
the  south  an  army,  under  General  Harris,  better 
equipped,  disciplined,  and  supplied  than  any  force 
that  had  yet  taken  the  field  in  India. 

From  Madras  General  Harris,  with  the  main  army 
and  a contingent  from  the  Nizam,  marched  on 
Seringapatam.  General  Stewart,  with  a force  of 
6,400  men,  marched  from  Bombay  through  the  coast 
districts,  and  after  an  obstinate  fight  of  six  hours 
drove  back  Tipu’s  army  of  12,000  troops  with  heavy 
losses  from  the  Siddeshwar  Pass. 

The  news  of  the  victory  was  conveyed  to  the 
Governor-General  by  the  friendly  Raja  of  Coorg  in 
the  following  words : “ A severe  action  ensued,  in 
which  I was  present  . . . the  discipline,  valour, 
strength,  and  magnanimity  of  the  troops,  the 
courageous  attack  upon  the  army  of  Tipu,  sur- 
passes all  examples  in  this  world.  In  our  Shasters 
and  Parana’s  battles  . . . have  been  much  cele- 
brated, but  they  are  unequal  to  this  battle  ; it 
■exceeds  my  ability  to  describe  the  action  at  length 
to  your  Lordship.” 

Tipu,  smarting  from  his  defeat,  hastened  to  oppose 


1 66  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  BRITISH  SUPREMACY. 

the  main  army,  now  slowly  advancing  on  his  capital 
at  the  rate  of  less  than  six  miles  daily.  At  Mal- 
villi  he  met  with  a terrible  reverse,  General  Harris 
slaying  upwards  of  1,000  of  his  troops.  Beaten 
in  the  field,  Tipu  retreated  to  his  defences  of 
Seringapatam,  which  he  and  his  officers  had  sworn 
to  die  together  defending. 

The  siege  commenced  on  the  5th  of  April,  its 
opening  operations  being  memorable  for  the  defeat 
sustained  by  the  “Iron  Duke”  in  the  grove  of  Sul- 
tanpet.  This  grove,  cut  up  by  water-channels  and 
trenches,  was  held  by  an  advanced  body  of  Tipu’s 
outposts  securely  entrenched.  To  drive  them  from 
their  position  Colonel  Arthur  Wellesley  advanced  on 
the  night  of  the  5th  of  April,  at  the  head  of  his  own 
regiment,  the  33rd.  As  they  drew  near  under  cover 
of  the  darkness,  they  were  suddenly  met  by  a fierce 
fire  of  musketry  and  rockets.  The  ranks  were 
thrown  into  confusion,  and  many  of  the  men  killed, 
whereon  the  rest  broke  and  retreated,  Wellesley 
receiving  a wound  in  the  knee  from  a spent  bullet. 
The  next  morning  he  advanced  again  to  the  attack, 
and  with  the  94th  Regiment,  two  battalions  of  sepoys, 
and  five  guns  drove  the  enemy  from  the  grove. 

By  the  4th  of  May  the  fort  of  Seringapatam  was 
breached,  and  the  honour  of  storming  it  allotted  to 
General  Baird,  one  of  the  unfortunate  officers  taken 
prisoner  on  the  defeat  of  Colonel  Baillie  at  Peram- 
bakam,  and  for  four  long  years  kept  a close  prisoner 
in  chains  in  the  dungeons  of  Mysore.  The  oppor- 
tunity had  come  when  he  was  to  undertake  the 
congenial  task  of  “paying  off  old  scores”  for  all  the 


CAPTURE  OF  SERINGAPATAM.  1 67 

terrible  sufferings  he  and  his  fellow-prisoners  had 
undergone.  At  ten  minutes  past  one  o’clock  in  the 
afternoon  the  signal  to  advance  was  given.  The 
attacking  party  of  2,494  Europeans  and  1,882 
sepoys  waited  breathless,  in  the  trenches,  until 
General  Baird  rose  up  and,  waving  his  sword,  cried 
out,  “ Now,  my  brave  fellows ! follow  me,  and  prove 
yourselves  worthy  of  the  name  of  British  soldiers.” 
Amid  a shower  of  bullets  which  swept  their  ranks, 
the  troops  dashed  across  the  intervening  river,  and 
within  seven  minutes  from  the  time  of  leaving  the 
trenches  the  British  flag  was  planted  on  the  summit 
of  the  breach.  Beyond  lay  a deep  ditch  still  to  be 
crossed.  The  inner  ramparts  were  crowded  with 
the  soldiery  of  Mysore,  in  the  midst  of  whom  stood 
Tipu,  dressed  in  a light-coloured  jacket,  wide  trousers 
of  flowered  chintz,  a dark  red  silk  sash  and  jewelled 
turban,  firing  at  his  advancing  foes  from  guns  loaded 
and  handed  to  him  by  his  attendants.  At  length, 
being  wounded,  he  mounted  his  horse  and  endea- 
voured to  make  his  way  towards  his  palace  through 
the  crowd  of  retreating  soldiers.  As  he  neared  the 
narrow  gateway  leading  from  the  inner  ramparts 
he  received  a second  wound  and  again  a third,  his 
horse  was  shot  dead,  and  he  fell  to  the  ground. 
Being  abandoned,  he  lay  weak  and  faint  A passing 
soldier,  seeing  his  richly  jewelled  belt,  strove  to 
snatch  it  from  him,  whereon  the  fierce  Tiger  of 
Mysore  raised  himself  and  struck  wildly,  only  to 
fall  back  shot  through  the  temple.  Amid  the  dead 
and  dying  the  monarch  was  found,  robbed  of  his 
jacket,  turban,  and  sword-belt. 


1 68  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  BRITISH  SUPREMACY. 

The  body,  borne  by  his  personal  attendants  and 
escorted  by  a guard  of  Europeans,  was  carried 
through  the  thronged  streets  of  his  capital,  where 
were  gathered  together  the  sorrowing  inhabitants  of 
the  town.  By  the  side  of  his  father  Haidar  Ah'  he 
was  laid  to  rest  in  the  Mausoleum  of  the  Lai  Bagh; 
the  chief  Kazi  came  forward  to  perform  the  funeral 
rites,  and  alms  were  given  to  the  holy  men  and  to 
the  poor  who  crowded  round.  As  the  mourners 
stood  by  his  grave  bewailing  the  downfall  of  their 
dreaded  chieftain  a wild  storm  burst  forth,  the 
thunder  rolled  and  the  lightning  flashed,  many  in 
the  town  and  in  the  camp  were  injured  or  struck 
dead — an  event  held  by  the  natives  as  proclaiming 
that  the  independent  rule  of  their  prince  had  passed 
away  and  the  rule  of  the  English  Raj  taken  its  place. 

Seringapatam  and  all  the  passes  leading  down  to 
the  plains,  as  well  as  the  entire  western  sea-coast 
and  the  districts  of  Koimbatur,  Darapuram,  and 
Mujnad  on  the  south  and  east,  were  held  by  British 
troops,  and  to  the  Nizam,  the  districts  on  the  south 
of  his  territories  were  allotted. 

The  descendant  of  the  last  Hindu  rulers  of  Mysore, 
an  infant  of  five  years,  Krishna  Raj,  was  taken  from 
the  lowly  position  into  which  his  family  had  fallen 
after  Haidar  Ah'  had  usurped  the  power,  and  placed 
on  the  throne,  where  until  1810  he  ruled  over  the 
curtailed  dominions  under  the  guidance  of  the  able 
Maratha  Brahman  Purnaiya.  On  becoming  inde- 
pendent the  new  Mysore  Raja  so  misgoverned  the 
state  that  he  was  deposed  in  1831,  and  the  manage- 
ment placed  in  charge  of  British  officials.  In  1881 


OUDH. 


169 


the  native  rule  was  restored  in  the  person  of  his 
adopted  son,  Chama  Rajendra  Wodigar,  an  en- 
lightened prince  who  ruled  the  destinies  of  his 
people  up  to  his  death  in  1894. 

To  Lord  Mornington  the  Company  allotted  an 
annuity  of  .£5,000  for  twenty  years.  By  the  Crown 
he  was  appointed  Commander-in-Chief  of  all  the  forces 
in  India  and  to  his  ill-concealed  annoyance  he  was 
further  honoured  by  being  raised  one  step  in  the  Irish 
Peerage,  so  that  henceforth  he  became  the  Marquess 
of  Wellesley  instead  of  Lord  Mornington. 

One  result  of  the  war  was  the  removal  of  the 
Naw'ab  of  the  Karnatik  from  the  civil  and  mili- 
tary control  of  his  dominions  on  account  of  the 
treasonable  correspondence  he  had  carried  on  with 
Tipu,  full  evidence  of  which  was  discovered  in  the 
archives  of  Seringapatam.  His  revenues  were  placed 
under  British  control,  one -fifth  allotted  for  his 
pension,  and  the  remainder  set  aside  to  pay  his 
private  debts  and  those  due  to  the  Company. 

Tanjore  was  also  taken  under  the  administration  of 
the  Company  on  the  26th  of  November,  1799,  on  the 
occasion  of  the  installation  of  Sarboji,  a son  of  the 
late  Raja. 

Oudh  had  next  to  be  dealt  with  : by  a treaty  made 
by  Sir  John  Shore,  in  1797,  with  the  Nawab  Wazir, 
the  latter  had  agreed  to  receive  three  thousand  Eng- 
lish troops,  for  the  protection  of  his  frontiers,  and  to 
guarantee  a sum  of  £760,000  yearly  for  their  pay. 

By  the  Governor-General  it  was  soon  considered 
advisable  that  additional  British  troops  should  be  sent 
to  Oudh  to  defend  its  frontiers  from  Maratha  raids 


170  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  BRITISH  SUPREMACY = 

and  to  ward  off  attacks  likely  to  occur  in  consequence 
of  a threatened  invasion  of  the  north  of  India  from 
Afghanistan  by  Zeman  Shah,  ruler  at  Kabul.  The 
Xawab  Wazi'r  was  called  on  to  guarantee  the  pay  of 
these  troops.  In  vain  he  pleaded  his  inability  to  pay 
even  for  the  troops  already  entertained  by  the  former 
treaty  with  Sir  John  Shore.  In  vain  he  pointed  out 
his  inability  to  pay  the  amount  he  owed  to  the 
European  traders  and  adventurers  who  carried  on  a 
lucrative  business  in  his  dominions  by  lending  him 
money  at  exorbitant  rates  of  interest  to  relieve  his 
more  pressing  necessities.  Sooner  than  guarantee  the 
pay  of  the  extra  troops  he  offered  to  resign  his  ruler- 
ship,  leave  his  own  country  and  go  on  a pilgrimage. 
The  Marquess  of  Wellesley  was  not  to  be  thus  trifled 
with.  The  Nawab  Wazi'r  was  informed  that  the 
European  moneylenders  would  be  removed  from 
Oudh,  but  that  if  he  resigned  his  high  office  his 
territories  would  be  annexed  by  the  Company,  as 
it  was  impossible  to  hand  over  the  government  to 
the  eldest,  or  any  of  the  Xawab’s  sons,  for  as  the 
Governor-  General  wrote  : “ What  rational  hope 

could  be  entertained  that  any  of  these  young 
princes  would  be  competent  to  the  correction  of 
those  evils  which  his  Excellency  himself,  aided  by 
all  his  knowledge  and  experience  of  public  affairs, 
has  confessed  himself  unable  to  remedy.”  For  the 
Xawab  Wazi'r  there  was  no  course  open  but  to 
entertain  a subsidiary  treaty. 

Accordingly,  in  July,  1801,  by  the  Treaty  of  Luck- 
now, the  Xawab  Wazi'r  agreed  to  cede,  in  lieu  of  a 
subsidy,  for  the  expenses  of  the  perpetual  defence  of 


TREATY  OF  LUCK  NO  W. 


171 


his  dominions  by  the  Company,  the  whole  of  the 
fertile  lands  lying  between  the  Ganges  and  Jumna 
known  as  the  Doab,  as  well  as  Rohilkhand  and  the 
district  of  Gorakhpur.  For  the  administration  of  these 
new  acquisitions  the  ablest  of  the  revenue  and  judicial 
officers  in  the  Company’s  service  were  formed  into  a 
Board,  presided  over  by  the  Hon.  Mr.  Henry  Welles- 
ley, afterwards  Lord  Cowley,  “ to  whose  discretion, 
address,  and  firmness,”  as  the  Governor-General  wrote 
to  the  Directors,  they  were  “ principally  indebted  for 
the  early  and  tranquil  settlement  of  these  extensive 
and  fertile  territories.” 

The  answer  of  the  Directors  was  characteristic. 
First  they  resented  the  patronage  of  a lucrative 
appointment  being  taken  out  of  their  hands,  and 
directed  “ that  Mr.  Wellesley  be  forthwith  removed,” 
an  order  which  was  not  carried  out  by  the  Board  of 
Control.  They  then  voted  that  the  new  acquisitions 
of  the  Company  had  been  wrested  from  the  Nawdb 
Wazir  “violently  and  compulsorily,”  that  his  consent 
had  been  extorted  and  that  the  treaty  was  in  direct 
violation  of  existing  treaties. 

The  Governor-General  was,  however,  too  busy  in 
endeavouring  to  frustrate  the  efforts  of  the  Mardthd 
princes  to  found  sovereignties  for  themselves  on  the 
ruins  of  the  Mughal  Empire  either  to  care  for  or  to 
resent  this  rebuke.  From  Berar  to  Orissa  the  Bhonsla 
of  Nagpur  held  sway.  The  rich  plains  of  Gujarat 
were  claimed  by  the  Gaekwdr  of  Baroda.  Sindhia  of 
Gwalior  held  possession  of  the  blind  Emoeror  Shah 
Alam  at  Delhi,  while  his  powerful  rival,  Holkar  of 
Indore,  had  gained  for  himself  the  chief  place  among 


172  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  BRITISH  SUPREMACY. 

the  Maratha  chieftains  by  driving  forth  Sindhia’s 
troops  and  the  Peshwa,  Baji  Rao,  from  Poona  and 
installing  there  his  own  nominee.  Baji  Rao  fled  to 
the  protection  of  the  English,  and  on  the  6th  of 
December,  1802,  entered  into  the  Subsidiary  Treaty 
of  Bassein,  which  virtually  placed  the  Company  at 
the  head  of  the  Maratha  Confederacy.  The  Peshwa, 
acknowledged  over-lord  among  the  Marathas,  agreed 
to  abide  by  the  advice  of  the  Governor-General  in  all 
things,  to  cede  territories  yielding  a revenue  of  26 
lakhs  of  rupees  yearly  for  the  pay  of  a permanent 
British  force  for  the  protection  of  his  dominions,  and 
to  dismiss  his  own  French  and  foreign  officers.  Both 
in  England  and  in  India  the  treaty  was  vehemently 
attacked  by  those  who  held  that  it  must  inevitably 
result  in  war.  By  others  it  was  held  that  the  treaty 
was  absolutely  necessary — even  if  followed  by  war — 
to  check  the  growing  power  of  the  Marathas  and  the 
influence  of  their  French  commanders,  especially  that 
of  General  Count  de  Boigne.  War  was  not  long 
delayed,  but  when  it  broke  out  the  Marathas  had  lost 
their  chief  strength.  In  former  days  the  hardy 
Marathas,  mounted  on  their  swift  ponies,  swept  like  a 
swarm  of  locusts  down  from  their  mountain  homes  on 
the  fertile  plains,  devastated  the  villages  of  the  peace- 
ful lowland  cultivators,  burned  and  laid  waste  all 
they  could  not  carry  off  to  their  forest  homes.  No 
army  could  long  follow  their  swift  course  and  rapid 
retreat,  for  behind  them  they  left  no  forage  for  cattle 
nor  grain  for  the  troops;  the  tanks  they  breached  and 
the  wells  they  filled  up  or  poisoned.  If  attacked  in 
their  strongholds  the)’  had  but  to  hold  out  till  their 


173 


XI A RAT  HAS. 

foes  were  exhausted  for  want  of  provisions  and 
obliged  to  retire,  when  they  could  again  sally  forth, 
cut  up  the  harassed  troops,  and  wage  a guerilla 
warfare,  in  the  tactics  of  which  they  had  no  rivals. 

Seeing  the  success  of  the  Company’s  disciplined 
infantry  sepoys,  they  deemed  that  if  they  submitted 


DE  BOIGNE. 

(From  Compton's  “ Military  Adventures  of  H industan  " — 

T.  Fisher  Unwin.) 

to  be  formed  into  battalions  of  foot-soldiers  supported 
by  artillery  the)'  would  be  able  to  meet  the  Company’s 
troops  on  equal  terms  and  in  overwhelming  numbers. 
In  1784  Sindhia  had  summoned  the  Savoyard  Benoit 
de  Boigne  to  the  command  of  his  troops,  and  for 
eleven  years  the  name  of  the  commander  was  a 
ferror  among  the  opposing  native  powers,  the  batta- 


174  establishment  of  British  supremacy. 


lions  he  raised  and  drilled  becoming  renowned  as 
invincible.  Yet  no  one  knew  better  than  De  Boigne 
the  inherent  weakness  of  the  system  he  had  succeeded 
in  founding.  His  constant  advice  to  Sindhia  was 
that  it  would  be  better  to  disband  the  whole  of  the 
battalions  rather  than  venture  to  place  them  in  the 
field  to  face  the  Company’s  troops. 

When  the  inevitable  fight  did  take  place  it  was 
found  that  the  system  De  Boigne  had  organised, 
though,  as  he  foretold,  it  did  break  down,  was  no 
contemptible  one.  After  the  battle  of  Laswari  which 
the  Marathas  had  to  fight  without  the  aid  of  their 
French  officers,  General  Lake  in  a secret  despatch 
to  General  Arthur  Wellesley,  wrote  : “ The  sepoys  of 
the  enemy  behaved  exceedingly  well,  and  if  they  had 
been  commanded  by  French  officers,  the  affair  would, 
1 fear,  have  been  extremely  doubtful.”  The  main 
faults  of  the  new  system  were  evident.  The  French 
officers  in  the  pay  of  the  native  princes  had  neither  the 
authority  nor  the  power  over  their  semi-independent 
and  often  mutinous  levies  that  was  possessed  by  the 
Company’s  officers  over  their  well-paid  and  systematic- 
ally recruited  sepoys.  Further,  when  once  the  batta- 
lions raised  by  the  French  officers  were  defeated  and 
scattered,  the  loss  was  complete  and  irretrievable,  for 
there  existed  neither  means  nor  resources  to  raise 
fresh  battalions  to  replace  the  soldiers  swept  away. 

When,  after  the  Treaty  of  Bassein,  the  Peshwa  was 
triumphantly  escorted  back  to  Poona  by  a force  under 
General  Arthur  Wellesley,  Sindhia  viewed  the  situa- 
tion with  undisguised  alarm,  and  summoned  his 
brother  chieftains  to  join  him  in  striking  a final  blow 


ASS  A YE. 


175 


for  Maratha  freedom.  The  Bhonsla  hurried  up  his 
levies,  but  Holkar  held  sullenly  aloof,  waiting  to  see 
how  events  would  develope.  The  united  armies  of 
Sindhia  and  the  Bhonsla  amounted  to  some  100,000 
men,  well  drilled,  and  supported  by  hundreds  of 
cannon ; General  Wellesley  and  Colonel  Stevenson 
had  an  army  of  15,000  men  ready  to  march  at  a 
moment’s  notice ; while  in  the  north  General  Lake 
had  10,000  men,  and  in  Gujarat  General  Murray 
commanded  7,000  more  troops. 

A demand  made  by  General  Wellesley  that  Sindhia 
should  withdraw  his  troops  within  his  own  territories 
was  ignored,  whereon  war  was  declared  on  the  3rd  of 
August,  1803.  The  campaign  was  opened  by  Wellesley, 
who  in  four  days  captured  the  fortress  of  Ahmad- 
nagar,  and  on  the  23rd  of  September,  at  the  head  of 
4,500  men,  came  up  with  the  combined  armies  of 
Sindhia  and  the  Bhonsla  numbering  50,000  men, 
30,000  being  cavalry,  with  100  guns,  at  the  famed 
field  of  Assaye.  When  Wellesley  saw  the  vast 
army  stretched  out  before  him  he  determined  to 
attack  at  once  without  waiting  for  the  arrival  of  the 
remainder  of  his  forces  under  Colonel  Stevenson.  As 
the  British  infantry  advanced  a withering  fire  from  the 
enemy’s  guns  held  them  back  until  360  men  of  the  19th 
Dragoons  and  the  4th  Native  Cavalry  charged  and 
sabred  the  Maratha  gunners.  In  this  charge  the  horse 
of  Lieutenant  Alexander  Grant  was  wedged  between 
the  wheel  of  a carriage  and  its  gun  which  the  artillery- 
man fired  before  Grant  could  cut  him  down.  The 
guns  once  silenced  the  infantry  advanced,  the  Mara- 
thas  were  chased  from  the  field  with  enormous  losses, 


1/6  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  BRITISH  SUPREMACY. 

ninety-eight  guns  were  left  behind,  the  cavalry  having 
ridden  off  at  the  first  signs  of  reverse.  In  this  battle 
of  Assaye,  the  most  daring  and  brilliant  ever  fought 
against  the  Marathas,  General  Arthur  Wellesley  lost 
over  one-third  of  his  force  in  killed  and  wounded. 

The  fort  of  Aligarh  was  taken  by  General  Lake, 
who  defeated  Sindhia’s  troops  under  their  French 
commander  Perron,  Delhi  was  then  captured  and 
afterwards  Agra  with  its  treasures,  arsenal,  and  162 
pieces  of  cannon. 

At  the  crowning  victory  of  Laswari  Lake  with 
three  regiments  of  dragoons  and  five  regiments  of 
native  cavalry  charged  again  and  again  through 
Sindhia’s  invincible  battalions  who  valiantly  stood 
their  ground,  “ the  fellows  ” as  Lake  wrote,  “ fought 
like  devils  or  rather  heroes.  Pray  God  I may  never 
be  in  such  a situation  again.”  It  was  not  till  the 
British  infantry  came  up  and  charged  with  bayonets 
that  the  field  was  won.  Fourteen  of  De  Boigne's 
battalions  were  destroyed,  and  7,000  men  out  of 
the  total  strength  of  9,000  picked  Marathas  were 
slain,  while  the  English  loss  was  only  824  men  killed 
and  wounded. 

On  the  east  coast  Colonel  Harcourt  drove  the 
forces  from  Nagpur  out  of  Orissa,  captured  Masuli- 
patam,  and  received  from  its  hereditary  guardians 
the  custody  of  the  famed  temple  of  Jagannath.  In 
the  west  the  Bhonsla’s  troops  were  totally  defeated 
on  the  wide  plain  in  front  of  the  village  of  Argaon, 
and  the  campaign  closed  on  the  29th  of  November 
with  the  capture  of  the  stronghold  of  Gawilgarh.  On 
the  17th  of  December  the  Treaty  of  Deogaon  was 


HOLKAR. 


I 77 


signed,  by  which  the  Bhonsla  of  Berar  agreed  to 
submit  in  future  all  his  war  disputes  to  the  arbitration 
of  the  Governor-General,  to  dismiss  his  French  and 
American  officers,  to  cede  Cuttack  to  the  Company, 
and  other  lands  to  the  Nizam,  over  whose  villages  he 
for  ever  relinquished  claim  to  exact  “ chauth.” 
Sindhia,  with  his  boasted  battalions  destroyed,  and 
his  chief  strongholds  captured,  signed  the  Treaty  of 
Surgi  Arjangaon  on  the  30th  of  December,  by  which 
he  yielded  not  only  his  rich  lands  lying  between  the 
Ganges  and  Jumna,  but  all  those  north  of  the  Rajput 
states  of  Jaipur,  Jodhpur,  and  Gohad,  renounced 
his  claims  on  the  Emperor,  on  the  Nizam,  and  on  the 
Gaekwar,  delivered  up  Ahmadnagar  to  the  Peshwa, 
and,  to  complete  his  humiliation,  agreed  to  employ  no 
more  French  or  American  officers  in  his  armies. 

A storm  of  controversy,  congratulation,  and  con- 
demnation arose  in  England  and  in  India  over 
these  rapid  wars  and  bewildering  treaties,  but  amid 
it  all  the  Governor-General  proudly  stood  unmoved, 
complacently  sun-eying  the  vast  territories  across 
which  he  had  advanced  the  British  rule. 

Of  the  Maratha  rulers  Jeswant  Rao  Holkar  alone 
remained  independent.  Raging  with  fury  at  the 
successes  of  the  Governor-General,  he  hurried  up 
from  Malwa,  calling  on  the  Rajputs,  Rohillas  and 
Sikhs  to  join  their  troops  with  his  in  one  mighty 
effort  to  roll  back  the  wave  of  conquest  now  sweep- 
ing on  towards  their  lands  and  principalities.  He 
wisely  abstained  from  taking  the  open  field,  where 
he  knew  that  his  troops  would  be  swept  away  by  the 
well-drilled  and  disciplined  Company’s  soldiers.  He 


178  ESTABLISHMENT  OP  BRITISH  SUPREMACY. 

saw  that  his  best  policy  was  to  avoid  a general  action 
and  retreat  before  the  slow-moving  British  troops 
until  they  were  worn  out  and  deprived  of  supplies,  and 
then  harass  their  outposts,  and  attack  them  in  detail. 

On  the  advance  of  General  Lake  and  General 
Monson  he  fell  back,  and  allowed  them  to  capture 
his  stronghold  of  Rampura.  On  the  approach  of  the 
rains  Lake  was  compelled  to  move  into  cantonments, 
leaving  to  Monson  the  seemingly  simple  task  of 
following  up  the  retreating  army.  With  five  batta- 
lions of  sepoys  and  four  thousand  irregular  horse 
Monson  pursued  Holkar  through  the  Mahandwara 
Pass,  across  the  Chambal  River.  He  carried  with 
him  no  stock  of  provisions,  and  in  his  hurry  neglected 
to  secure  his  communications  over  the  many  river- 
channels  and  watercourses  he  rapidly  crossed.  His 
supplies  soon  failed,  the  rain  fell  incessantly,  the 
roads  became  mud  tracks  through  which  it  was 
well-nigh  impossible  to  drag  the  native  carts  crowded 
with  camp-followers  and  the  wives  and  children  of 
the  sepoys,  who  always  accompany  native  troops  on 
the  march.  In  the  rear  the  rivers  were  so  swollen  as 
to  be  unfordable,  and  no  boats  had  been  collected 
and  left  in  readiness  in  case  of  need,  the  soldiers 
were  dispirited,  and  it  was  impossible  to  drag  the 
guns  or  ammunition  waggons  further.  The  one 
chance  of  safety,  and  that  a doubtful  one,  was  to 
attack  Holkar,  who  seemed  not  unwilling  to  fight. 
Monson  hesitated  for  a moment,  then  turned  and 
commenced  his  disastrous  retreat,  not  staying  to 
answer  the  insulting  messages  of  the  Mardthas,  who 
called  on  him  to  fight  or  surrender.  The  retreat- 


RETREAT  OF  MON  SON. 


179 


ing  troops,  in  want  of  food,  wet  and  cold  from 
the  incessant  rain,  marched  wearily  on  through  the 
heavy  mud,  pausing  only  to  fire  on  the  Maratha 
cavalry,  who  swept  down  every  now  and  then  to 
slay  belated  stragglers  or  to  cut  up  the  sepoys 
guarding  the  baggage.  The  guns,  sunk  deep  in  the 
mud,  had  to  be  spiked  and  left  behind,  and  the 
ammunition  destroyed.  The  deep  rivers  had  to  be 
crossed  on  elephants  or  rafts,  or  else  a halt  called 
until  some  ford  was  discovered.  Holkar’s  wild 
cavalry  daily  grew  bolder,  while  from  the  neighbour- 
ing mountains  the  savage  Bhils  crept  down  to 
plunder  and  slay  the  wounded  and  carry  off  before 
the  very  eyes  of  the  sepoys  the  unprotected  women 
and  children.  Many  of  Monson’s  native  soldiers 
and  irregular  cavalry  sought  safety  in  flight,  the 
remainder,  their  last  gun  left  behind,  struggled  on, 
halting  now  and  then  for  a few  hours’  rest.  Wearied, 
hungry,  and  dazed  from  want  of  sleep,  the  dejected 
band  at  last  formed  themselves  into  a square, 
where  they  were  mowed  down  in  hundreds  by  the 
Maratha  guns.  The  remnant  in  endeavouring  to 
escape  were  cut  down  by  Holkar’s  swordsmen,  a 
few  of  the  sepoys  escaping  to  Agra,  there  to  spread 
abroad  the  news  of  the  retreat  of  Monson  and  the 
glorious  victory  of  Holkar — a story  still  sung  in  the 
villages  of  Central  India  in  the  long,  hot  evenings. 

The  full  extent  of  the  disaster  was  expressed  by 
Lord  Lake  in  the  words  he  wrote  : “ I have  lost  five 
battalions  and  six  companies,  the  flower  of  the  army, 
and  how  they  are  to  be  replaced  at  this  day,  God 
only  knows.” 


ISO  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  BRITISH  SUPREMACY. 


Arthur  Wellesley,  surveying  the  whole  campaign, 
the  reckless  advance  without  supplies  into  a hostile 
country  where  no  efforts  had  been  made  to  keep 
open  communications,  summed  up  the  situation  by 
rejoining  : “ In  my  mind  . . . the  detachment  must 
have  been  lost,  even  if  Holkar  had  not  attacked 
them  with  his  infantry  and  artillery.” 

Holkar  had  but  a short-lived  success.  Driven, 
along  with  his  ally  the  Raja  of  Bhartpur,  from 
before  Delhi  by  Lord  Lake,  he  fled  down  the  Doab, 
burning  the  Company’s  villages.  From  before  Dig 
he  was  driven  by  General  Frazer,  who  fell  mortally 
wounded  along  with  twenty-two  of  his  officers  and 
623  of  his  men,  leaving  to  Lord  Lake  the  capture  of 
the  citadel  and  final  defeat  of  Holkar,  who  escaped 
to  the  Punjab,  where  he  was  forced  to  accept  a 
treaty. 

Before  the  impregnable  fortress  of  Bhartpur  Lake 
lost  three  thousand  of  his  men  in  futile  and  obstinate 
efforts  to  reduce  it,  and  was  finally  obliged  to  retire 
on  an  assurance  from  its  Raja  that  the  alliance  with 
Holkar  would  be  renounced  and  an  indemnity  of 
20  lakhs  of  rupees  paid  towards  the  expenses  of  the 
war. 

The  London  merchants,  who  feared  to  accept  the 
responsibility  of  administering  the  vast  extent  of 
territory  they  had  acquired,  and  who  were  goaded  into 
anger  by  the  contemptuous  indifference  with  which 
the  Governor-General  -treated  their  remonstrances, 
dreaded  to  speak  out  boldly  their  opinions  to  the 
haughty  Napoleon  of  India.  They  had  congratu- 
lated him  on  the  early  results  of  his  operations  against 


RECALL  OF  WELLESLEY. 


1 8 1 


the  Mar  At  has,  but  had  cautiously  reserved  to  them- 
selves the  right  of  fully  inquiring  into,  and  expressing 
their  mature  judgment  on,  the  justice  and  policy  of 
entering  on  the  war.  They,  however,  showed  their 
personal  resentment  at  his  conduct  by  ordering  the 
abolition  of  a college  he  had  founded  at  Calcutta  for 
the  training  of  junior  civil  servants,  a scheme  after- 
wards carried  out  in  its  intent  by  the  establishment, 
in  1805,  °f  the  East  India  College  at  Haileybury. 

Above  all  things  the  Directors  were  alarmed  at 
the  state  of  the  finances.  The  Company’s  debt  at 
home  and  in  India  had  risen  from  £17,059, 192  in 
1797  to  £31,638,827  in  1806,  while  their  expenses 
and  interest  on  debt  amounted  to  £17,672,017,  with  a 
revenue  of  £15,403,409. 

With  relief  they  heard  of  the  defeat  of  Monson, 
and  gladly  seized  what  they  had  long  sought,  the 
opportunity  of  recalling  a Governor-General  whom 
they  feared,  and  of  w hose  power  they  were  jealous. 
The  services  rendered  them  by  the  Marquess  Wellesley 
could  not  be  overlooked,  so  in  1841  it  was  agreed  to 
erect  a statue  to  him  as  a “ permanent  mark  of  the 
admiration  and  gratitude  of  the  East  India  Com- 
pany.” 

Lord  Cormvallis,  who  came  out  a second  time  to 
India  to  succeed  the  Marquess  Wellesley,  died  shortly 
after  taking  up  his  appointment,  and  was  succeeded 
by  a Bengal  civilian,  Sir  George  Barlow,  who  held 
office  until  the  arrival,  in  1807,  the  next  Governor- 
General,  Lord  Minto. 

The  interval  was  marked  by  the  sepoy  mutiny  at 
the  fort  of  Vellore,  eighty-eight  miles  from  Madras. 


1 82  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  BRITISH  SUPREMACY. 

There  the  family  of  Tipu  had  been  allotted  apart- 
ments and  allowed  to  live  in  semi-regal  state,  kept 
under  a more  or  less  strict  surveillance  by  a guard  of 
370  European  troops  and  1,500  sepoys,  under  the 
command  of  Colonel  Fancourt. 

In  the  south  it  had  been  considered  necessary,  in 
order  to  produce  an  appearance  of  military  uniformity 
among  the  Company’s  troops,  that  all  the  sepoys  should 
dress  alike,  shave  their  beards,  cut  their  moustaches, 
bear  no  caste  marks,  and  wear  a tall  glazed  hat 
instead  of  their  usual  turbans.  The  sepoys,  sus- 
picious by  nature,  saw  in  these  new  regulations  some 
deep  underlying  purpose — some  insidious  attack  upon 
their  religion,  or  an  attempt  to  break  through  the 
hereditary  customs  of  caste,  so  that  the  Company’s 
soldiers  might  grow  to  be  all  of  one  faith,  and  of  one 
race,  severed  for  ever  from  their  kinsmen  in  the  villages 
of  their  forefathers.  The  rumours  of  discontent  and 
warnings  that  secret  meetings  were  being  held  at 
night-time  among  the  sepoys  were  received  by  the 
European  officers  with  disbelief,  or  else  ignored. 

At  dawn  on  the  loth  of  July,  1806,  the  pent-up 
feelings  of  the  sepoys  burst  forth  in  open  mutiny. 
Colonel  Fancourt  was  shot  down  on  the  threshold 
of  his  own  house  in  the  fort,  volley  after  volley  was 
poured  into  the  barracks  where  the  unarmed  Euro- 
pean soldiers  vainly  endeavoured  to  screen  them- 
selves behind  their  beds  and  scanty  furniture.  A few 
survivors,  officers  and  men,  made  their  escape  to  the 
ramparts  of  the  fort,  pulled  down  the  green  flag  of 
Tipu,  there  planted  by  the  mutineers,  drove  back 
their  assailants  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet,  and 


VELLORE  MUTINY. 


133 


entrenched  themselves  in  one  of  the  bastions,  where 
they  waited  for  help.  On  the  news  reaching  Arcot, 
nine  miles  distant,  Colonel  Gillespie  galloped  to  the 
rescue  at  the  head  of  his  dragoons  and  native  cavalry, 
followed  close  by  his  guns.  Reaching  Vellore,  he  was 
drawn  up  to  the  ramparts  of  the  fort  by  the  defenders, 
the  gates  were  opened  for  his  cavalry,  who  charged 
in  and  cut  down  from  300  to  400  of  the  mutineers, 
the  rest  of  whom  were  captured,  and,  after  trial  by 
court-martial,  shot  or  punished  according  to  their 
guilt,  the  number  of  the  regiment  being  erased  from 
the  Army  List. 

Lord  Minto,  who  succeeded  Sir  George  Barlow, 
landed  at  Calcutta  in  1807. 

Pledged  though  the  new  Governor-General  was  to 
a policy  of  retrenchment  and  non-interference  with 
the  independent  or  semi-independent  states,  he  soon 
found  that  the  time  had  not  yet  come  when  the  sword 
might  be  sheathed  and  the  lands  of  the  Company  rest 
safe  from  invasion  or  internal  disturbances. 

Beyond  the  Company’s  territories  lay  the  lands  of 
the  warlike  Sikhs  in  the  Punjab,  ruled  over  by  Ranjit 
Singh,  the  Lion  of  Lahore.  Beyond  were  the  un- 
known mountains  and  valleys  of  Afghanistan,  where 
Shah  Shuja  reigned,  and  further  still  lay  Persia.  It 
was  known  that  Napoleon,  thwarted  in  his  ambitious 
schemes  of  diverting  the  trade  from  the  East,  round 
the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  to  its  ancient  route  through 
Egypt  to  the  Mediterranean,  had,  in  1807,  at  the 
Conference  of  Tilsit,  sought  the  aid  of  the  Russian 
Emperor  Alexander  in  a final  effort  to  extend  his 
conquests  over  Asia  to  the  far-off  Ganges.  Above 


184  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  BRITISH  SUPREMACY. 


all  things  it  was  therefore  deemed  necessary  that  Lord 
Minto  should,  if  possible,  gain  the  friendship  of  the 
Ruler  of  the  Punjab,  the  Amir  of  Afghanistan,  and 
the  Shah  of  Persia,  so  that  the  Company’s  territories 
might  be  safeguarded  in  case  of  an  invasion  from  the 
West. 

Although  this  threatened  danger  passed  away 
when  Napoleon  invaded  Spain  in  1808,  and  made 
war  against  Russia  in  1812,  still,  in  the  meantime, 
the  Governor-General  had  sent  envoys  to  enter  into 
friendly  negotiations  with  the  outlying  powers : 
Metcalfe  to  Lahore,  Elphinstone  to  Peshawar,  and 
Malcolm  to  Teheran.  Though  little  immediate 
benefit  resulted  from  these  negotiations,  save  that 
Ranjit  Singh  renounced  all  claims  over  the  Sikh 
chieftains  on  the  Company’s  side  of  the  Sutlej,  they 
form  the  connecting  link  between  the  policy  of  the 
times  of  Clive,  Hastings,  and  Wellesley,  and  that  of 
to-day,  when  it  is  considered  necessary  to  exhaust 
almost  all  the  available  resources  of  India  in  extend- 
ing the  frontier  defences,  and  making  them  strong 
enough  to  withstand  any  possible  attack  from  Russia, 
whose  conquering  career  towards  the  East  first  com- 
menced some  seventy  years  ago. 

Though  Lord  Minto  captured  Java  in  1810,  and 
Abercromby  freed  the  Eastern  seas  from  the  depre- 
dations of  French  ships  by  the  capture  of  Mauritius, 
the  Directors  of  the  Company  were  more  interested  in 
securing  the  financial  prosperity  of  their  possessions 
than  in  seeking  new  annexations.  In  the  last  three 
years  of  Lord  Minto’s  administration  the  Company’s 
affairs  were  so  prosperous  that  there  was  a balance 


LORD  MLNTO. 


185 


of  £ 1 0,000,000  over  investments,  of  which  nearly 
£2, 000,000  was  sent  home  in  bullion.  As  a result  of 
this  increasing  prosperity  the  Directors  were  enabled 
to  convert  their  debt  of  £27,000,000  from  a loan  of 
12  per  cent,  to  a new  one  at  6 per  cent.,  saving  by 
the  conversion  an  annual  payment  of  £592,000. 


IX. 

MARQUESS  OF  HASTINGS  (1814 — 1 823). — EXTEN- 
SION OF  INFLUENCE  OVER  NATIVE  STATES. 

By  a cynical  fate  Lord  Moira,  who  in  Parliament  had 
consistently  denounced  what  he  called  the  injustice 
whereby  British  rule  had  been  established  in  India, 
and  had  vehemently  opposed  the  encroachments  of 
Wellesley,  was  forced,  when  he  himself  became 
Governor-General,  to  continue  the  very  policy  he 
had  so  strenuously  condemned,  in  order  to  evolve 
peace  and  prosperity  out  of  the  chaos  of  anarchy  into 
which  the  land  had  drifted  since  the  removal  of  the 
firm  hand  of  the  Great  Proconsul.  Lord  Moira,  in 
fact,  saw  that  by  the  sword  alone  could  the  disbanded 
Maratha  and  marauding  free  lances  of  Central  and 
Northern  India  be  held  in  subjection. 

Anarchy,  civil  war,  fire,  rapine,  and  ensuing  famine 
may  be  held  by  some,  who  know  not  of  them,  to  be 
less  baneful  than  the  slow,  grinding  exactions  of  a 
civilised  government.  But  those  who  have  seen  in 
India  the  burning  remains  of  once  peaceful  villages ; 
heard  the  tales  of  the  fiendish  and  unutterable  tor- 

1S6 


pindAri's. 


187 

tures  meted  out  to  unoffending  peasants  to  make 
them  disclose  their  wealth  or  from  sheer  lust ; viewed 
with  senses  stayed  the  bodies  of  once-loved  women 
and  lisping  children  done  to  death  by  foul  outrage, 
or  slaughtered  to  satiate  the  savage  fierceness  of 
bands  of  roaming  robbers,  must  ever  hope  that,  so 
long  as  the  British  rule  holds  sway  in  India,  the 
sword  may  never  be  hidden  till  the  unrestrained 
passions  of  man  have  learned  to  submit  themselves 
to  the  dictates  of  a civilised  government. 

Nine  years  of  timid  evasion  of  the  responsibilities 
of  ruling  the  territories  handed  over  to  the  Company 
by  Clive,  Hastings,  and  Wellesley  had  gone  far  to 
plunge  the  whole  centre  of  India  into  a state  of 
chronic  civil  war.  Robber  bands  of  Mardth&s, 
Pindaris,  Ghurkas  from  Nepdl,  and  fierce  Pathdns 
from  beyond  the  frontiers  roamed  far  and  wide, 
raided  the  villages,  and  even  exacted  contributions 
from  those  in  British  territories.  The  Pindaris,  some 
fifty  thousand  in  number,  rode  out  yearly,  from  their 
safe  retreats  in  the  valleys  of  the  Narbada,  to  rob  and 
plunder  amid  the  villages  of  Rajputana,  away  to  the 
east  across  the  sacred  lands  of  Puri,  south  over  the 
deep  flowing  waters  of  the  Kistna,  where  they  devas- 
tated and  burned  all  they  could  not  carry  away.  On 
their  approach  the  unarmed  folk  fled  from  their 
villages  and  left  them  at  the  mercy  of  the  robbers. 
When  the  villages  were  surrounded  and  flight  found 
to  be  impossible,  the  inhabitants  sought  refuge  in 
death,  grouping  themselves  together  with  their  wives 
and  children  in  their  leaf-thatched  huts  which  they 
fired,  preferring  to  perish  in  the  flames  rather  than 


1 88 


M A RQVESS  OF  HASTINGS. 


submit  to  the  wanton  insults  and  fiendish  cruelties 
of  their  relentless  foes. 

Through  Central  India  the  unwieldy  and  ill-paid 
armies  of  Sindhia  and  Holkar  roamed,  and  laid  waste 
the  land  for  miles  on  either  side  of  their  marches, 
until  the  inhabitants,  bereft  of  grain  and  food,  were 
driven  to  follow  the  camp,  and  beg  the  soldiers  to 
buy  their  children  so  that  the}'  should  not  starve. 
Xot  a single  ray  of  heroism,  of  chivalry,  or  even  of 
vulgar  bravery  illuminates  the  dark  page  of  history 
recording  the  progress  of  the  Maratha  troops.  The 
soldiers,  when  unpaid,  lived  by  pillage  ; their  chiefs 
squandered  their  time  in  debauchery  and  drunken 
orgies  ; a civilised  government  determined  and  strong 
enough  to  enforce  law  and  order  could  alone  have 
saved  the  land  and  the  people  from  the  grievous 
burden  and  miseries  untold. 

Nepal,  the  hill  country  stretching  for  seven  hundred 
miles  along  the  southern  slopes  of  the  Himalayas, 
north  of  Oudh  and  Rohilkand — occupied  by  the 
Ghurkas,  a race  of  Rajput  descent,  who  had  assumed 
sovereignty  over  the  aboriginal  inhabitants  of  the 
land-^first  bid  open  defiance  to  the  British  Govern- 
ment. Shut  in  from  the  lowland  plains  by  the 
feverish  and  almost  impenetrable  forests  stretching 
along  the  base  of  the  Himalayas,  known  as  the  Tarai, 
they  had  gradually  extended  their  influence  to  the 
south,  east,  and  west,  organising  and  disciplining  their 
forces,  descending  on  the  Company’s  villages,  carrying 
off  the  cattle,  demanding  tribute,  and  asserting  their 
right  by  force  of  arms  to  encroach  on  British  territory. 
When  ordered  to  retire  and  remain  within  their  own 


GHURKA  WAR. 


189 


limits  or  else  accept  the  alternative  of  war,  the  brave 
and  hardy  mountaineers  haughtily  replied  that  the 
soldiers  of  the  Company  had  already  failed  to  take  the 
lowland  fortress  of  Bhartpur — “ how,  then,  was  it 
likely  that  they  should  storm  the  mountain  fastnesses 
constructed  by  the  hand  of  God  ? ” 

Though  the  Ghurkas  numbered  but  1 2,000  fighting 
men,  yet  their  prowess  was  so  renowned  that  the 
Governor-General  deemed  it  necessary  to  despatch 
24,000  men  and  64  guns  in  four  divisions  to  reduce 
them  to  submission.  Against  their  stronghold  of 
Kalanga,  or  Xalapani,  an  open  enclosure  surrounded 
with  stone  walls,  General  Gillespie,  the  suppressor  of 
the  Mutiny  of  Vellore,  advanced  with  1 ,000  Europeans, 
2,500  sepoys,  and  1 1 guns.  The  fort  was  gallantly 
defended  by  600  Ghurkas,  who  repeatedly  drove  back 
their  assailants,  the  brave  General  Gillespie  falling  shot 
through  the  heart.  The  garrison  held  out,  and  not  till 
there  were  but  70  survivors  left  did  the  fort  surrender, 
its  defence  having  delayed  the  expedition  for  over  a 
month. 

From  the  west  a detachment  under  General 
Ochterlony  dragged  their  guns  up  the  mountain- 
sides, over  almost  inaccessible  paths  covered  with 
snow,  secured  each  pass  and  occupied  post  after 
post  until  the  Ghurkas  consented  to  accept  the  terms 
imposed  on  them. 

The  British  troops  were  no  sooner  withdrawn  than 
the  Ghurkas  repented  of  their  submission  and  refused 
to  carry  out  the  treaty.  Lord  Moira,  now  created 
Marquis  of  Hastings,  had  again  to  despatch  General 
Ochterlony,  created  a baronet  for  his  previous  sue- 


190  MARQUESS  OF  HASTINGS. 

cesses,  at  the  head  of  twenty  thousand  men,  including 
three  European  regiments,  to  tame  the  hardy  hill-men, 
who  knew  not  what  it  was  to  be  defeated.  The 
expedition  started  in  February,  1 8 1 6,  and,  after  a 
series  of  swift  and  brilliant  operations,  the  hill-men 
were  obliged  to  recognise  the  futility  of  further 
resistance. 

By  the  Treaty  of  Segauli  the  Company  obtained 
possession  of  the  hill  stations  of  Simla,  Masuri,  and 
Ndini  Tal,  and  the  limits  of  the  Ghurka  rule  were 
marked  out  by  stone  pillars,  so  that  the  two  powers 
might  rest  side  by  side  in  peace  without  fear  of  further 
encroachments.  Since  the  Treaty  of  Segauli  the 
brave  little  Ghurkas  have  enlisted  in  our  native  army, 
forming  some  of  its  finest  fighting  regiments,  and 
have  followed  the  fortunes  of  the  Company  and  of 
the  Crown  in  many  a battlefield,  and  taken  part  in 
many  a heroic  defence. 

Far  different  from  the  hardy  hill  Ghurkas  were  the 
fierce  Marathas  and  robber  Pindarfs  who  had  now 
to  be  reclaimed  from  their  predatory  habits.  Under 
their  leaders,  Karim,  Chitu,  and  Wasil  Muhammad, 
the  Pinddris  raided  the  lands  of  Rajputana,  of  the 
Nizam,  and  of  the  Company,  destroyed  the  crops, 
and  tortured  with  horrible  refinement  of  cruelty 
the  unarmed  and  panic-stricken  inhabitants.  As 
the  wild  Pinddris  passed  swiftly  over  the  land 
they  were  followed  by  a noted  soldier  of  fortune, 
Amir  Khan,  who  had  gathered  round  him  an  army 
of  well-paid  Pathans  amounting  in  number  to  up- 
wards of  10,000  infantry,  15,000  cavalry  supported  by 
artillery,  by  whose  aid  he  exacted  from  the  chieftains 


pindarIs. 


191 

of  Rajputana  contribution  and  tribute.  For  long  the 
Governor-General  pleaded  with  his  Council  and  with 
the  Directors  for  permission  to  put  an  end  to  the 
horrors  perpetrated  by  these  robber  bands.  Woe- 
fully he  lamented  that  he  feared  the  indifference  of 
the  Company  arose  from  the  fact  that  he  had  “ been 
culpably  deficient  in  pointing  out  to  the  authorities 
at  home  the  brutal  and  atrocious  qualities  of  these 
wretches.” 

At  length,  in  1816,  the  long-delayed  permission 
came.  That  there  should  be  no  failure  the  largest 
army  up  to  then  assembled  in  India  under  the 
Company’s  rule  was  drawn  round  the  haunts  of  the 
Pindaris.  From  October,  1817,  a force  of  120,000 
men  and  300  guns  closed  in  from  Bengal  on  the 
north-east,  from  the  Deccan  on  the  south,  and  from 
Gujarat  on  the  west.  Amir  Khan,  seeing  that  all  was 
lost,  surrendered,  and  was  allowed  to  retire  to  his 
principality,  now  known  as  Tonk. 

The  Pindaris  vainly  strove  to  escape  in  detach- 
ments through  the  steel  fence  that  surrounded  them  ; 
by  the  end  of  January,  1818,  they  were  all  captured, 
dispersed,  or  annihilated.  Karim  surrendered,  and 
was  allotted  lands  in  Gorakhpur  whereon  to  live 
peaceably  and  recount  to  admiring  hearers  the  glories 
of  his  past  days.  Wasil  Muhammad  was  captured, 
and,  thwarted  in  an  attempt  to  escape,  committed 
suicide.  The  last  of  the  famed  freebooters  of  Central 
India,  Chitu,  was  deserted  by  his  followers  and  after- 
wards found  mangled  by  a tiger  in  the  jungle,  his  sole 
remaining  friend  being  his  horse,  which  stayed  grazing 
by  his  side. 


192 


MARQUESS  OF  HASTINGS. 


The  Maratha  armies  still  passed  to  and  fro  gather- 
ing strength,  hoping  that  they  might  yet  throw  off 
the  yoke  of  the  foreigner.  In  Malwa  Jeswant  Rao 
Holkar,  debauched  and  drunken,  had  died  in  1811, 
raving  mad  from  his  excesses.  His  widow,  Tulsi 
Bai,  and  one  of  her  lovers,  Amir  Khan,  had  assumed 
the  regency  during  the  infancy  of  Malkar  Rao,  son  of 
the  late  chieftain.  To  the  east  were  the  dominions 
of  the  powerful  Daulat  Rao  Sindhia,  who,  curbed  by 
the  Governor-General  in  his  raids  on  the  territories  of 
Bhopal  and  Nagpur,  now  fretted  over  his  wrongs,  and 
watched  with  interest  the  brave  resistance  of  the 
Ghurkas,  and  extended  his  protection  to  the  Pindaris. 

Baji  Rao  II.,  the  Peshwa  who  reigned  at  Poona, 
was  the  acknowledged  head  of  the  whole  Maratha 
Confederacy.  Dissolute,  ambitious,  weak,  and  fickle, 
yet  outwardly  sanctimonious  and  ever  engaged  in 
pious  deeds,  he  waited  but  for  the  time  when,  with 
the  aid  of  Holkar  and  Sindhia,  of  the  Bhonsla  and 
the  Gaekwar  of  Baroda,  he  would  be  strong  enough 
to  repudiate  his  engagements  with  the  Company  and 
once  again  stand  forth  as  hereditary  leader  among 
the  Marathas.  With  the  Gaekwar  of  Baroda  the 
Peshwa  found  it  impossible  to  open  up  negotiations, 
for  the  English  there  held  sway,  through  the  Resi- 
dent, Colonel  Walker,  during  the  imbecility  of  the 
reigning  prince.  The  Prime  Minister  of  Baroda  was 
a high  Brahman  named  Gangadhar  Sastri,  whom  the 
Peshwa  dreamed  he  might  bend  to  his  will  and  by 
bribes  seduce  into  an  offensive  alliance  against  the 
English.  An  opportunity  soon  arose.  The  Gaekwar 
rented  certain  villages  from  the  Peshwa,  who  prayed 


THE  PESHWA. 


193 


Gangadhar  Sastri  to  come  to  Poona  to  settle  out- 
standing accounts  and  the  financial  affairs  of  the 
two  states.  The  astute  Brahman  minister,  however, 
knew  too  well  the  mind  and  cunning  of  the  Peshwa, 
so  refused  to  travel  to  Poona  until  the  British 
Resident  consented  to  guarantee  his  safety.  The 
guarantee  was  given,  and  Gangadhar  Sastri  went 
to  Poona,  where  he  was  feasted  and  honoured, 
wealth  and  alliances  promised  him  if  he  would 
agree  to  join  in  the  coming  war  against  the 
English.  When  it  was  found  that  the  Brahman 
would  not  turn  traitor  or  receive  the  proffered 
bribes,  the  Peshwa  determined  that  at  least  he 
should  not  be  allowed  to  carry  back  the  secrets  he 
had  learned  to  the  ears  of  the  English  Resident  at 
Baroda.  The  Peshwa  had  a low  favourite,  one 
Trimbakji,  willing,  in  order  to  gain  his  master’s 
favour,  to  violate  all  the  traditions  and  ordinances 
of  his  forefathers  and  commit  the  unpardonable  sin 
of  killing  a Brahman.  On  a day  holy  to  the 

Hindus,  Gangadhar  Sastri  was  prayed  by  the  Peshwa 
and  by  Trimbakji  to  visit  a famed  temple  at  Pandar- 
pur,  and  there  offer  up  his  prayers  to  the  gods  and 
present  holy  offerings  to  the  temple  priests.  The 
pilgrimage  was  made,  the  religious  rites  performed, 
but  as  the  unsuspecting  Brahman  left  the  temple 
the  swords  of  the  hirelings  of  Trimbakji  hewed  him 
to  pieces. 

When  the  news  reached  the  Governor-General  the 
Peshwa  was  ordered  to  deliver  up  Trimbakji  to 
justice,  and,  as  a punishment  for  his  part  in  the  crime, 
to  cede  territories  yielding  an  income  of  34  lakhs 

H 


194 


MARQUESS  OF  HASTINGS. 


of  rupees,  and  to  pay  for  new  troops  quartered  in 
his  dominions.  Still  firm  in  his  belief  in  the  power 
of  his  intrigues,  and  enraged  at  his  losses — especially 
at  that  of  his  favourite,  who  had  escaped  to  lead 
an  outlawed  life- — -the  Peshwa  determined  to  resist 
the  demands.  With  his  wealth  he  strove  to  spread 
sedition  among  the  soldiers  of  the  Company  and 
gain  them  over  to  his  side ; he  levied  troops  from 
his  feudatories,  hoping  to  hide  his  designs  from 
the  vigilant  eyes  of  the  Company’s  Resident  at  his 
capital.  The  Resident,  Mountstuart  Elphinstone, 
discerned  danger  when  he  saw  the  Peshwa’s  troops 
gathering  round  his  cantonments.  He  had  scarcely 
time  to  remove  the  English  garrison  to  Kirki,  some 
three  miles  distant  from  Poona,  and  send  for  aid 
to  Bombay,  when  the  storm  burst.  The  Residency 
and  European  houses  were  first  given  up  to  flames, 
and  then  the  Peshwa’s  army  of  18,000  cavalry  and 
8,000  foot  swarmed  out  of  Poona  to  annihilate  the 
small  Kirki  garrison  who  bravely  marched  out  to 
meet  the  advancing  hosts.  Between  the  two  armies 
lay  a deep  morass.  Eight  thousand  picked  Maratha 
horsemen  charged  down  on  Elphinstone’s  force, 
plunged  into  the  deep  mud,  and  there,  as  they 
rode  over  each  other  in  their  confusion,  were  shot 
down  in  hundreds.  The  infantry  turned  and  fled  in 
disastrous  retreat  to  Poona,  leaving  their  guns  and 
the  field  to  the  victorious  garrison  of  Kirki.  On 
reinforcements  arriving  from  Bombay,  the  Peshwa, 
at  the  head  of  his  troops,  was  driven  from  Poona 
and  forced  to  retreat  into  Khandesh.  There  he 
was  turned  back  by  British  troops  and  obliged  to 


195 


DEFEAT  OF  THE  PESHWA. 

retreat  south  towards  Poona.  Colonel  Staunton,  at 
the  head  of  500  men,  300  irregular  horse,  and  two 
guns  manned  by  twenty-four  Europeans,  w as  at 
once  directed  to  march  from  Sirur  to  assist  in  the 
defence  of  the  capital.  This  force,  after  a long 
night’s  journey,  suddenly  found  itself,  in  the  early 
morning,  surrounded  by  the  whole  Maratha  army  of 
the  Peshwa,  20,000  horsemen  and  8,000  foot,  most 
of  them  fierce  Arab  mercenaries.  Ahead  lay  the 
village  of  Koragaon,  the  shelter  of  whose  mud  walls 
was  gained  by  Staunton  and  his  handful  of  men, 
but  not  before  many  of  the  Arabs  had  seized  the 
best  positions.  Without  sleep,  without  food  or  water, 
the  defenders  held  out  all  day,  repelled  attack  after 
attack,  and  at  times  sallied  out  to  meet  the  masses 
hurled  against  their  slender  defence.  Five  out  of 
eight  of  the  British  officers  u’ere  killed  or  wounded, 
271  of  the  devoted  800  w^ere  dead  or  disabled,  and 
towrards  night-time  one  of  their  guns  v'as  captured. 
Lieutenant  Pattinson,  a giant  six  feet  seven  inches 
in  height,  was  lying  on  the  ground  v'ounded,  shot 
through  the  body ; but  on  hearing  the  news  he  rose, 
rushed  forward,  and  with  the  butt  of  his  musket 
knocked  over  right  and  left  the  Arabs  who  held 
the  gun.  Pattinson  fell  shot  once  again,  and  was 
carried  away  to  die.  The  gun  for  vdiich  he  had 
given  his  life  was  recaptured,  the  garrison  saved, 
and  the  Marathas  sullenly  retired,  their  wrhole  army 
unable  to  subdue  a single  regiment  of  British  troops. 
The  Maratha  army  vras  pursued,  hunted  down,  and 
dispersed,  the  Peshwa  ultimately  deeming  it  wise  to 
enter  into  negotiations  with  Sir  John  Malcolm  for 


MARQUESS  OF  HASTINGS. 


196 

surrender.  Deprived  of  his  sovereignty,  granted  a 
pension  of  £ 80,000  annually,  with  permission  to  reside 
at  Bithur,  near  Cawnpur,  his  name  disappeared  from 
history,  and  his  personal  property  passed,  on  his 
death,  to  his  adopted  son,  Nana  Sahib. 

In  Malwa,  Tulsi'  Bai'  had  placed  herself  and  the 
young  Holkar  under  British  protection,  only  to 
be  soon  afterwards  murdered  by  her  own  troops. 
General  Hislop  and  Sir  John  Malcolm  at  once 
advanced  against  the  mutinous  army,  which  they 
found,  on  the  21st  of  December,  1817,  strongly 
posted  on  the  far  side  of  the  Sipra  River,  near 
Mehidpur. 

Having  crossed  by  a ford  in  the  face  of  the  enemy, 
the  British  cavalry  charged  under  a heavy  fire.  In 
the  fierce  fight  which  ensued  thirty-five  of  Hislop’s 
officers  were  wounded — three  fatally — and  eight 
hundred  of  his  troops  lost ; the  Maratha  force  of 
Malwa  lost  three  thousand  men,  all  their  artillery 
and  stores,  while  the  remainder  retreated  in  disas- 
trous flight. 

Holkar  was  forced  to  accept  a subsidiary  treaty 
and  alliance  with  the  English,  and  resign  all  his 
claims  for  tribute  over  the  chiefs  of  Rajputana,  his 
estates  in  Malwa  being  restored  to  him  considerably 
curtailed. 

In  Nagpur  the  Maratha  Prince,  Apa  Sahib,  who 
had  risen  to  power  by  strangling  the  former  Bhonsla, 
his  idiot  cousin,  showed  signs  of  hostility  towards-  the 
Company  when  news  reached  him  that  the  Peshwa 
had  broken  loose  at  Poona.  Undismayed  by  the 
successes  of  the  British  troops  elsewhere,  the  Bhonsla 


sItabAld/. 


197 


still  continued  his  preparations  for  war.  At  length 
affairs  became  so  threatening  that  the  British  Resi- 
dent deemed  it  wise  to  move  his  force  of  fourteen 
thousand  men  to  two  peaks  of  the  isolated  Sitabaldi 
Hills  lying  between  Nagpur  and  the  Residency. 

Twenty  thousand  Marathas  and  four  thousand  Arab 
mercenaries  laid  siege  to  the  position,  and  succeeded 
in  driving  a British  guard  from  the  peak  nearest 
the  city.  Captain  Fitzgerald  prayed  again  and 
again  to  be  allowed  to  charge,  at  the  head  of  his 
three  troops  of  Bengal  cavalry,  into  the  midst  of 
the  Marathas,  now  crowding  round  on  the  level 
plain  at  the  base  of  the  hill.  His  commanding 
officer,  angered  at  the  repeated  demands,  at  length 
sent  back  the  answer,  “Tell  him  to  charge  at  his 
peril.’’  “ At  my  peril  be  it,”  cried  Fitzgerald,  as  he 
gave  the  order  to  charge,  with  the  result  that  the 
enemy  was  put  to  rout  and  the  Arabs  driven  from 
the  hill.  When  British  reinforcements  advanced  to 
the  assistance  of  the  Resident  the  Bhonsla  surren- 
dered, and  consented  to  place  all  his  military  power 
under  the  control  of  the  Company,  to  cede  Berar 
and  the  lands  lying  near  the  Narbada. 

Peace  was  restored  all  over  Central  India,  the 
Pindarfs  and  Pathan  freebooters  dispersed,  the 
Maratha  armies  defeated,  and  their  chieftains  re- 
duced to  subjection  ; the  Sikhs  alone  remained  in 
the  Punjab  to  try  their  strength  against  the  ever- 
victorious  arms  of  the  Company. 

Hastings  had  been  made  a G.C.B.  in  1819,  granted 
a sum  of  £60,000,  to  relieve  the  pressing  necessities 
due  to  his  reckless  generosity,  and  received  a vote 


198 


MARQUESS  OF  HASTINGS. 


of  thanks  from  both  Houses  of  Parliament,  only  to 
fall  at  the  very  summit  of  his  fame  and  popularity. 

His  ward  had  married  Sir  William  Rumbold, 
partner  in  the  banking  firm  of  Palmer  & Co.,  at 
Haidarabad — a fact  used  by  the  firm  as  showing 
that  the  sanction,  or  countenance,  of  the  Governor- 
General  had  been  given  to  their  lending  nearly  a 
million  sterling  at  exorbitant  rates  of  interest  to  the 
Nizam’s  Government,  where  the  money  was  squan- 
dered and  misapplied,  instead  of  being  devoted  to 
public  purposes.  Stung  by  the  aspersions  made  on 
his  good  faith,  Lord  Hastings  resigned  the  govern- 
ment of  India,  and  returned  home  to  receive  the 
appointment  of  Governor  and  Commander-in-Chief 
of  Malta. 

During  the  time  of  Lord  Hastings’  administration 
many  changes  had  taken  place  in  the  affairs  of  the 
Company.  In  1808  a Secret  Committee  of  the  House 
of  Commons  inquired  into  the  whole  business  of  the 
Indian  trade,  and  sat  for  four  years.  The  Charter 
of  the  Company,  which  had  in  1793  been  renewed 
for  a period  of  twenty  years,  expired  in  1814.  By 
Parliament  the  Charter  was  again  continued  for  a 
further  period  of  twenty  years,  with  very  important 
and  noteworthy  alterations.  The  principles  of  free 
trade  had  gained  so  rapidly  in  England  that  the 
Company  was  only  allowed  to  retain  the  monopoly 
of  trading  to  China,  but  the  whole  of  the  Indian 
markets,  with  certain  restrictions,  were  thrown  open 
to  competition.  A great  expansion  of  trade  im- 
mediately took  place ; the  price  of  cotton  fell  one- 
half,  pepper  one-quarter,  while  the  rates  of  freight 


SIR  THOMAS  MU  NR  6. 


199 


fell  from  nearly  £ 2 5 to  less  than  £1  the  ton.  In 
fact,  as  Mill  writes  in  his  “ History  of  British 
India”:  “The  Government  of  India  overcame  all  its 
temporary  financial  difficulties,  and  upon  the  restora- 
tion of  peace  was  provided  with  ample  means  to 
meet  every  demand.  At  no  previous  period  in  the 
history  of  the  country  was  the  credit  of  the  British 
Government  more  firmly  established,  or  was  the 
prospect  of  financial  prosperity  more  promising 
than  at  the  commencement  of  the  year  1823,  when 
the  Marquis  of  Hastings  retired  from  the  guidance 
of  the  pecuniary  interests  of  India.” 

Notwithstanding  the  heavy  war  charges  of  upwards 
of  9 millions  sterling  yearly,  the  surplus  of  revenue 
over  expenditure  and  interest  on  debt  amounted  in 
the  last  year  of  Lord  Hastings’  administration  to 
over  35-  millions  sterling. 

The  most  permanent  memorial  of  these  years  of 
prosperity  was  the  revenue  settlement  made  by  Sir 
Thomas  Munro  in  Madras.  Under  this  system  each 
cultivator  became  a direct  holder  of  the  land,  paying 
to  the  Government  its  share  of  the  produce,  calculated 
in  money,  on  the  average  output  estimated  from  a 
comparison  of  the  actual  yield  of  each  field  during 
a normal  year  and  the  past  accounts.  This  settle- 
ment was  made  permanent  for  a period  of  thirty 
years,  when  it  became  liable  to  revision,  the  rates 
of  revenue  demanded  from  each  cultivator  varying 
according  to  the  lands  held  at  from  sixpence  to 
twenty-five  shillings  an  acre. 

The  same  period  is  signalised  by  the  long  debate 
in  Parliament  on  the  subject  of  Christianity  in  India 


200 


MARQUESS  OF  HASTINGS. 


and  the  dangers  or  advisability  of  the  State  con- 
trolling the  work  of  the  missionaries  and  chaplains 
sent  out  from  home.  A bishop  was  ultimately 
appointed  to  Calcutta,  and  three  archdeacons  for 
the  control  and  superintendence  of  the  Company’s 
chaplains. 


X. 

LORD  AMHERST  (i 823 — 1 828). — FIRST  BURMESE 
WAR. 

The  five  years  of  Lord  Amherst’s  Government 
saw  the  expansion  of  the  Company’s  possessions 
towards  the  East  over  Assam,  Arakan,  and  Tenas- 
serim. 

To  the  east  of  the  Bay  of  Bengal  the  land  of  Burma 
was  inhabited  by  a people  of  Tibeto-Chinese  origin, 
possessing  Mongolian  features  with  a fair  or  yellow 
complexion.  The  Burmese  proper — the  Burmese  of 
Ava — dwelt  along  the  upper  reaches  of  the  Irawadi, 
field  in  its  lower  courses  by  the  Talaings  of  Pegu. 
Incessant  warfare  between  rival  princes  was  broken 
by  devastating  waves  of  invasion  from  the  barbarians 
of  China  on  the  north  or  incursions  of  the  armies  of 
Siam  on  the  south. 

About  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  a 
renowned  adventurer,  Alompra  the  Hunter,  rose  to 
power  in  the  north,  drove  out  the  invading  Talaings 
from  Ava,  and  then  advancing  south,  conquered  Pegu, 
and  founded  the  city  of  Rangoon  near  the  mouth  of 

the  river.  The  successors  of  Alompra  spread  their 

201 


202 


LORD  AMHERST. 


rule  over  Arakan,  invaded  Assam,  Manipur,  and 
Cachar,  and  at  length,  growing  bold,  encroached  on 
the  Company’s  territories.  When  the  King  of  Ava 
was  remonstrated  with  his  fury  knew  no  bounds  at 
the  insult  he  conceived  he  had  received.  The  Viceroy 
of  Pegu  received  orders  to  proceed  to  Calcutta,  arrest 
the  Governor-General,  and  bring  him  to  Ava,  bound 
in  golden  fetters,  for  execution.  War  was  proclaimed 
by  Lord  Amherst  on  the  24th  of  February,  1824. 

At  that  time  Burma  was  an  unknown  land  ; nothing 
of  its  history,  geography,  or  powers  of  resistance  could 
be  learned  from  even  the  most  experienced  of  Indian 
authorities.  On  the  declaration  of  war  the  Bengal 
sepoys  alleged  that  their  caste  rules  prevented  them 
from  travelling  by  sea,  so  the  troops  from  the  north 
had  to  be  sent  overland  from  Chittagong  to  Arakan, 
and  up  the  Brahmaputra  to  Assam,  Madras  being 
called  on  to  send  her  less  scrupulous  sepoys  by  sea 
to  Rangoon.  When  Rangoon  was  reached  it  was 
found  that  the  Burmese  fighting  men  had  disappeared 
into  the  surrounding  jungles,  and  that  the  inhabitants 
had  fled,  leaving  the  town  empty  of  provisions.  The 
advance  of  the  invading  force,  through  the  dense 
and  fever-laden  jungles  that  covered  the  land,  was 
delayed  by  the  Burmese  who  defended  each  posi- 
tion with  stockades  of  interlaced  trees  and  bamboos, 
twenty  feet  high,  against  which  artillery  was  use- 
less. For  two  years  the  wear)'  war  dragged  on, 
the  Burmese,  driven  from  post  to  post,  at  length 
became  so  demoralised  that  they  fled  in  their 
thousands  from  behind  their  stockades  if  a single 
English  soldier  appeared  in  sight.  It  was  not  until 


FIRST  BURMESE  WAR. 


203 


20,000  British  troops  had  been  lost,  through  disease 
or  while  fighting,  and  14  millions  sterling  expended, 
that  the  King  of  Ava,  in  1826,  sued  for  peace, 
granted  him  on  condition  that  he  relinquished  all 
his  claims  to  Assam,  ceded  Arakan  and  Tenas- 
serim,  paid  a war  indemnity  of  one  million  sterling, 
agreed  to  accept  a British  Resident  and  enter  into 
a commercial  treaty. 

Rumours  of  the  disastrous  campaign  had  spread, 
full  of  exaggeration,  throughout  North  India.  The 
Marathas,  Pindarfs,  and  Jats  once  again  showed  signs 
of  insubordination.  The  Jat  chieftain  of  Bhartpur, 
in  Central  India,  openly  defied  the  authority  of 
the  Governor-General,  and  placed  his  infant  cousin, 
the  rightful  heir,  whose  succession  had  been  recog- 
nised by  the  British  authorities,  in  prison.  Lord 
Amherst  hesitated  to  give  orders  for  an  attack  on  the 
impregnable  fort,  so  Sir  David  Ochterlony,  who,  on 
receiving  news  of  the  revolt,  had  marched  against  it 
from  Delhi,  was  peremptorily  ordered  to  retire.  The 
rebuff  sank  deep  into  the  heart  of  the  brave  old 
general  who  had  fought  under  Warren  Hastings  and 
Sir  Eyre  Coote,  and  served  for  fifty  years  in  the 
Company’s  sendee.  He  resigned  his  appointment 
as  agent  in  Malwa  and  Rajputana,  and  died  two 
months  afterwards  in  deep  dejection.  The  news  had 
now  travelled  through  the  bazaars  of  Central  India 
that  the  Company’s  troops  were  obliged  to  halt  in 
their  conquering  career  before  the  famed  fortress,  and 
that  there  were  still  hopes  of  the  Marathas  being  able 
to  defy  the  dictates  of  the  Governor-General.  Dread- 
ing the  effect  of  these  rumours  on  the  half-subdued 


204 


LORD  AMHERST. 


chieftains  of  Central  India  the  Governor-General  at 
length  directed  the  Commander-in-Chief,  Lord  Com- 
bermere,  to  capture  the  fort,  bring  the  defiant  Raja 
to  submission,  and  thus  check  the  spread  of  a 
threatened  outbreak  among  the  Marathas. 

By  the  23rd  of  December,  1825,  25,000  men  were 
assembled  before  Bhartpur,  and  1 30  heavy  guns 
poured  forth  an  incessant  fire  on  the  citadel.  The 
artillery  failing  to  make  an  impression  or  effect  a 
breach  on  the  sun-baked  walls,  upwards  of  sixty  feet 
thick,  a mine  was  driven  under  the  main  battery  of 
the  fortress,  filled  with  ten  thousand  pounds  of  powder 
and  exploded.  Slowly  the  whole  bastion,  crowded 
with  the  unsuspecting  infantry  and  artillerymen,  rose 
in  the  air.  A mighty  roar  held  the  onlookers 
spellbound,  the  flames  and  smoke  leaped  forth,  and 
the  rising  mass  was  hurled  to  pieces,  dealing  death 
among  both  besieged  and  besiegers.  In  the  morning 
the  breach  was  gained,  and  after  a desperate  fight  the 
strongest  fort  in  India,  which  had  so  long  defied  the 
Company’s  soldiers  and  sepoys,  was  captured.  Its 
defences  were  razed  to  the  ground,  its  name  is  now 
almost  forgotten  in  Europe,  save  that  it  is  borne  on 
the  colours  of  the  Royal  Munster  Fusiliers,  who  had 
marched  sixty  miles  in  eighteen  hours  to  be  present  at 
the  final  assault,  the  fifth  in  which  they  had  taken  part. 

Many  were  the  reforms  which  pressed  for  attention 
during  the  administration  of  Lord  Amherst,  none  of 
which  could  be  fully  carried  out  till  the  time  of  Lord 
William  Bentinck,  during  whose  rule  (1828-1835) 
commenced  what  may  be  fitly  called  the  Modern 
History  of  British  Administration  in  India. 


XI. 

LORD  WILLIAM  BENTINCK  (1828 — 1835).  — COM- 
MENCEMENT OF  MODERN  HISTORY  OF  BRITISH 
INDIA. 


THE  first  task  taken  in  hand  by  the  new  Governor- 
General  was  the  invidious  one  of  restoring  the  financial 
equilibrium  disturbed  by  the  late  Burmese  war.  For 
the  five  years  ending  1829  the  annual  extraordinary 
charges  had  amounted  to  .£2,878,000,  the  expenditure 
in  1828  exceeding  the  income  by  one  million  sterling. 

The  first  saving  of  ^20,000  annually,  effected  by 
abolishing  the  extra  allowance  granted  to  the  Com- 
pany’s officers  when  on  duty  in  districts  far  removed 
from  headquarters  or  when  engaged  in  war,  brought 
down  such  a storm  of  censure  and  indignant  remon- 
strance on  the  Governor-General  that  he  found  it 
advisable  in  1830  to  restrict  the  Press  from  all  dis- 
cussion of  the  reduction  which  had  been  approved 
by  the  Court  of  Directors. 

A further  annual  saving  of  1^  millions  sterling 
was  carried  out  by  a reduction  of  the  military 
forces  in  the  three  Presidencies,  while  civil  expendi- 

205 


20 6 


LORD  WILLIAM  BENTINCK. 


ture  was  curtailed  by  the  employment,  as  far  as 
possible,  of  natives  in  the  public  service. 

In  the  North-west  Provinces  Robert  Mertins  Bird 
inaugurated  the  system  of  collecting  the  land  revenue 
from  the  village  community  as  a whole — a system 
essentially  different  from  that  established  in  Bengal 
by  the  Permanent  Settlement  with  the  Zammdars, 
or  that  carried  into  effect  in  Madras  by  Sir  Thomas 
Munro. 

The  most  striking  of  all  the  reforms  made  during 
the  administration  of  Lord  William  Bentinck  was  the 
abolition  of  the  custom  whereby  high-caste  Hindu 
widows  deemed  it  their  sacred  duty  to  burn  them- 
selves on  the  funeral  pyre  of  their  deceased  husbands, 
a custom  especially  in  vogue  in  Lower  Bengal.  The 
custom  was  a barbarous  one  of  very  ancient  times, 
its  later  revival  in  India  being  due  to  special  and 
localised  causes.  Long  before  the  time  of  Lord 
W.  Bentinck  efforts  had  been  made  to  suppress  this 
outrage  against  every  feeling  of  humanity  and  reason. 

In  the  time  of  Akbar,  the  great  Mughal  Emperor, 
laws  had  been  enacted  to  prevent  the  rite  being 
carried  out  by  the  Hindus,  it  being  absolutely  for- 
bidden to  burn  widows  unless  permission  was  granted 
by  the  local  Governors  at  the  request  of  the  widow. 

In  the  Portuguese  dominions  it  is  recorded,  in  the 
Commentaries  of  Alfonso  de  Albuquerque,  as  pub- 
lished by  the  Hakluyt  Society,  that  : “If  any  Hindu 
died  his  wife  had  to  burn  herself  of  her  own  free  will, 
and  when  she  was  proceeding  to  this  self-sacrifice  it 
was  with  great  merry-making  and  blowing  of  music, 
saying  that  she  desired  to  accompany  her  husband  to 


WIDOW-HURNING. 

[From  “ Voyages  dc  Franfois  Bernier,  1723. ", 


208 


LORD  WILLIAM  BENTINCK. 


the  other  world.  . . . However,  when  Alfonso  de  Albu- 
querque took  the  city  of  Goa  he  forbade  from  that 
time  forth  that  any  more  women  should  be  burned, 
and  though  to  change  one’s  customs  is  equal  to  death 
itself,  nevertheless  they  were  happy  to  save  their  lives, 
and  spake  very  highly  of  him  because  he  had  ordered 
that  there  should  be  no  more  burning.” 

The  widow  who  burned  herself  on  the  death  of  her 
husband  was  called  a Sati,  a feminine  noun  derived 
from  a Sanskrit  verb,  “sad,”  meaning  “to  be,”  so  that 
a Sati  expresses  the  idea  of  “ a woman  who  is  ” — a 
woman  deemed  to  exist  above  all  others,  a woman 
virtuous,  brave  and  religious  enough  to  obey  the 
ordinances  handed  down  from  of  old,  and  sacrifice 
herself  on  her  husband’s  tomb.  In  India,  it  must  be 
remembered  that  social  customs  and  religious  duties 
are  so  interwoven  one  with  the  other  that  the  breach 
of  even  the  most  unimportant  detail  of  family  life, 
habits  of  eating,  drinking,  or  ablution  become  the 
subject  of  religious  sanction,  bringing  down  on  the 
defaulter  the  Divine  wrath.  Though  the  primary 
reasons  for  widow-burning  can  be  found  in  the 
primitive  elements  of  savage  society,  and  in  the  desire 
of  the  husband  that  the  wife  may  have  no  interest  in 
his  decease,  still,  in  India  there  were  special  reasons 
for  its  survival  and  encouragement,  especially  in  the 
lower  provinces  of  Bengal,  where  it  was  most  pre- 
valent, the  number  of  widows  annually  burned,  some 
voluntarily,  some  driven  by  force  to  the  funeral  pyre, 
or  led  stupefied  with  opium  or  intoxicating  drugs, 
amounting  to  upwards  of  600  to  800. 

In  Lower  Bengal  the  law-books  most  in  use  or- 


WIDOW  BURKING . 


209 


dained  from  of  old  that  a widow,  if  childless,  should 
be  entitled  to  the  use  of  her  husband’s  property  after 
his  decease,  but  that  she  had  no  power  to  dispose  of 
such  property  by  gift,  sale,  or  mortgage.  It  was 
therefore  impossible  for  the  childless  widow  to  spend 
the  property  on  the  periodical  performance  of  the 
numerous  and  costly  religious  rites  which  the  Hindu 
religion  and  the  Brahman  priesthood  had  ordained 
to  propitiate  the  soul  of  the  deceased  and  hasten 
its  journey  through  the  realms  where  punishment 
was  awarded  for  its  evil  deeds.  It  therefore  became 
necessary  to  free  the  property  from  the  possession 
of  the  widow,  so  that  it  might  pass  into  the  hands 
of  other  heirs  competent  to  distribute  it  to  the  Brah- 
man priesthood  for  the  presumed  benefit  of  the 
deceased.  The  custom  of  burning  widows  was  in 
vogue  among  ruder  races  with  whom  the  Aryans  in 
India  had  come  in  contact,  as  indeed  it  had  been  a 
custom  among  the  Aryans  themselves  in  very  old 
times  in  their  primeval  homes  in  the  west.  Still 
nowhere  in  the  Vedas — the  writings  held  by  all  Hindus 
to  declare  the  revealed  Will  of  God — could  any  direc- 
tion for  the  unholy  rite  be  found.  When  efforts  were 
made  to  finally  put  an  end  to  the  custom  in  British 
India,  the  difficulty  was  speedily  surmounted  by  the 
astute  Brahman  priesthood.  One  text  in  the  Rig 
Veda  gave  directions  for  the  conduct  of  the  widow 
on  the  decease  of  her  husband.  It  told  her  that  she 
should  array  herself  with  jewels  and  then  without 
tears  and  without  sorrow  “ go  up  to  the  altar  first.” 
The  Sanskrit  word  for  “ first  ” is  “ agre,”  which 
by  a slight  clerical  alteration  was  made  to  read 


210 


LORD  WILLIAM  BENTINCK. 


“agneh,”  “of  the  fire.”  Having  thus  mutilated  the 
text  the  Brahman  priests  declared  that  the  rite  of 
widow-burning  was  a custom  inculcated  on  all  high- 
caste  Hindu  widows  by  a Divine  ordinance,  and  that 
the  intention  of  the  Governor-General  to  suppress  the 
custom  was  a direct  attack  on  the  Hindu  religion. 

The  Government  of  Lord  William  Bentinck,  with 
the  concurrence  of  all  civilised  natives,  passed  an  Act 
on  December  4,  1829,  declaring  that  the  “practice  of 
burning  or  burying  alive  the  widows  of  Hindus  be 
illegal  and  punishable  by  the  Criminal  Courts.” 

One  unforeseen  result  followed  on  the  passing  of 
this  Act.  The  high-caste  widow  was  left  alive,  but 
with  no  future. 

A girl  of  high  caste  in  India  is  betrothed  at  the 
age  of  three  or  four.  Though  this  early  form  of 
marriage  is  imperfect  and  revocable  until  the  final 
ceremony  takes  place,  some  time  afterwards,  when 
the  bride  and  bridegroom  take  seven  steps  round 
the  family  altar,  still  if  the  husband  die  in  the  mean- 
time, or  afterwards,  the  girl  becomes  a widow,  to 
whose  relations  the  very  idea  of  her  remarriage  is 
abhorrent,  for  she  is  considered  for  ever  spiritually 
united  to  the  deceased,  whose  future  existence  depends 
in  part  on  his  wife’s  good  or  evil  deeds. 

It  was  not  till  the  Act  XV.  of  1856  was  passed  that 
an  effort  was  made  to  encourage  the  remarriage  of 
these  Hindu  widows,  by  enacting  that  “ no  marriage 
contracted  with  Hindus  shall  be  invalid  by  reason  of 
the  woman  having  been  previously  married  or  be- 
trothed.” 

That  this  Act  had  but  slight  effect  may  be  seen 


THAGS. 


21  I 


from  the  last  Census  Returns,  where  it  is  shown  that 
there  are  23,000, OCX)  widows  in  India,  10,165  of  them 
under  four  years  of  age,  and  51,876  of  them  between 
five  and  nine.  For  those  who  are  of  respectable 
families,  there  is  but  little  alleviation  from  the  dull 
routine  of  a life  which  is  deemed  to  have  failed  in  its 
primary  purposes,  that  of  being  a wife  and  mother, 
for  we  find  from  the  same  Census  Returns  that  in 
India  there  are  but  543,49 5 women  who  can  read  or 
write,  the  number  of  those  who  can  neither  read  nor 
write  being  127,726,768,  while  there  are  but  r8  per 
cent,  of  girls  of  school-going  age  attending  school. 

An  equally  important  service  rendered  to  India 
during  the  administration  of  Lord  William  Bentinck 
was  the  rooting  out  of  the  Thags,  or  professional 
robbers,  whose  hereditary  occupation  was  the  poison- 
ing or  strangling  of  travellers.  Some  estimate  of  the 
widespread  operations  of  these  criminals  can  be 
obtained  from  the  fact  that  between  the  years  1826 
and  1834,  1,562  of  the  members  of  this  strange  sect 
were  tried,  1,404  of  them  being  convicted  and 
sentenced  to  be  hanged  or  else  transported  for  life. 

The  existence  of  Thags  in  India  had  been  known 
for  a long  time.  In  the  days  of  Akbar,  it  is  recorded 
that  five  hundred  of  them  were  hanged,  while  the 
accounts  of  early  travellers  are  full  of  stories  respecting 
the  insecurity  of  the  roads  and  dangers  of  travelling 
on  account  of  the  atrocities  of  these  professional 
murderers. 

Thevenot,  a French  traveller  in  India  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  gives  a detailed  account  of  the  opera- 
tions of  the  Thags,  as  carried  on  between  Agra  and 


212 


LORD  WILLIAM  BENTINCK. 


Delhi.  He  quaintly  details  how  “the  cunningest 
robbers  in  the  world  are  in  that  country.  They  use 
a certain  slip,  with  a running  noose,  which  they  can 
cast  with  so  much  sleight  about  a man’s  neck,  when 
they  are  within  reach  of  him,  that  they  never  fail,  so 
that  they  strangle  him  in  a trice.  They  have  another 
cunning  trick  also  to  catch  travellers  ; they  send  out 
a handsome  woman  upon  the  road,  who,  with  her  hair 
dishevelled,  seems  to  be  all  in  tears,  sighing  and  com- 
plaining of  some  misfortune,  which  she  pretends  has 
befallen  her.  Now,  as  she  takes  the  same  way  that 
the  traveller  goes,  he  easily  falls  into  conversation 
with  her,  and  finding  her  beautiful,  offers  her  his 
assistance,  which  she  accepts  ; but  he  hath  no  sooner 
taken  her  up  behind  him  on  horseback  than  she 
throws  the  snare  about  his  neck  and  strangles  him.” 
These  Thags  wandered  to  and  fro  by  road  and 
river,  disguised  as  travellers  or  rich  merchants,  wait- 
ing for  an  opportunity  to  ingratiate  themselves  into 
the  company  of  unsuspecting  wayfarers,  with  whom 
they  journeyed  till  they  found  a suitable  place  and 
time  to  murder  them  and  carry  ofif  their  valuables. 
The  strangest  fact  about  these  stranglers  was  that 
they  travelled  about  in  bands  all  bound  together  by 
the  strictest  vows.  Their  operations  were  carried  on 
with  the  utmost  secrecy,  no  traveller  whom  they  had 
ever  met  being  allowed  to  escape  to  tell  the  tale  of 
his  adventures.  All  their  deeds  were  supposed  to  be 
carried  out  in  honour  of  the  dread  Goddess  Kali  or 
Bhavani.  To  her  the  pickaxe,  which  they  always 
cafried  with  them  to  dig  the  graves  of  their  victims, 
was  consecrated,  even  the  noose  with  which  they 


THAGS. 


213 


strangled  their  victims  was  held  sacred.  After  each 
successful  raid,  offerings  were  made  in  the  temples  of 
the  goddess.  Their  terrible  profession  was,  unknown  to 
the  British  rule,  openly  recognised  by  the  native  land- 
holders and  heads  of  villages,  who  shared  in  their  booty 
or  purchased  their  blood-stained  and  ill-gotten  gains. 
On  being  captured  and  brought  before  the  English 
Officers  of  Justice,  the  Thags  did  not  hesitate  to 
proudly  recount  the  full  number  of  the  fearful  murders 
they  had  perpetrated,  never  evincing  the  slightest 
signs  of  repentance  or  remorse  or  in  any  way  giving 
evidence  that  they  considered  their  undertakings  as 
aught  but  holy  and  blameless.  The  story  of  their 
deeds,  as  detailed  by  themselves,  is  now  preserved  in 
manuscript  in  the  archives  of  the  India  Office  at 
Whitehall,  and  form  the  weirdest  record  of  human 
depravity  and  wayward  wickedness  that  could  possibly 
be  found  in  the  history  of  any  people  laying  claim  to 
be  considered  sane  and  reasoning  beings.  Yet  when 
these  savages  were  not  engaged  in  their  so-called 
sacred  and  lucrative  employment  they  settled  down 
as  peaceful  cultivators  till  the  season  arrived,  and  the 
omens  were  propitious,  for  their  operations. 

The  writings  of  two  semi-orientalised  and  astute 
administrators,  Colonel  Sleeman  and  Colonel  Meadows 
Taylor,  at  length  drew  public  attention  to  the  subject, 
whereon  a special  department  for  the  suppression 
of  the  Thags  was  inaugurated.  Within  six  years 
nearly  all  the  members  of  the  fraternity  were  hanged, 
transported,  or  else  sent  to  the  Central  Jail  at  Jabal- 
pur to  end  their  days  in  carpet-making  or  some  other 
useful  and  harmless  occupation. 


214 


LORD  WILLIAM  BENTINCK. 


In  isolated  parts  of  India  cases  of  murder  still  occur 
similar  to  those  perpetrated  by  the  Thags,  and  no 
officer  who  has  moved  among  the  more  ignorant 
classes  of  the  natives  and  read  their  thoughts  would 
venture  to  assert  that  if  once  the  strong  hand  of  a 
civilising  power  were  removed,  crimes,  equally  savage 
and  unreasoning,  would  not  again  spring  to  life  and 
be  casually  ignored  by  the  dreamy  dwellers  in  the 
soothing  plains  of  India. 

The  Charter  of  the  Company  was  renewed  in  1833 
for  a further  period  of  twenty  years,  but  the  exclu- 
sive right  of  trading  with  China  was  abolished,  while 
the  Proprietors’  dividend  of  some  ,£630,000  was  in 
the  future  to  be  paid  by  an  annuity  on  the  revenue. 
Lord  Macaulay  was  sent  out  as  an  additional  or  law 
member  of  the  Governor-General’s  Council  to  stamp 
the  impress  of  his  imaginative  and  versatile  genius  on 
the  administration,  legislation,  and  history  of  India. 
The  first  question  he  had  to  consider  was  whether 
the  higher  education  of  the  natives  of  India,  and  the 
official  correspondence,  should  be  carried  on  in  the 
classical  languages  of  the  East  or  in  English.  His 
opinion  has  become  historical  more  for  the  vigour  and 
brilliancy  of  the  language  in  which  it  was  expressed 
than  for  any  knowledge  he  possessed  of,  or  new  light 
he  threw  on,  the  facts  he  was  called  on  to  consider. 

Although  he  confessed  that  he  knew  nothing  of  the 
classical  languages  of  the  East,  still  he  held  “ that  a 
single  shelf  of  a good  European  library  was  worth  the 
whole  native  literature  of  India  and  Arabia,”  and 
further,  “ that  all  the  historical  information  which  has 
been  collected  from  all  the  books  written  in  the 


MAC  A ULA  Y. 


215 


Sanskrit  language  is  less  valuable  than  what  may  be 
found  in  the  most  paltry  abridgment  used  at  pre- 
paratory schools  in  England.  In  every  branch  of 
physical  or  moral  philosophy  the  relative  position  of 
the  two  nations  is  nearly  the  same.” 

By  the  Resolution  of  1835  it  was  decided  that  the 
official  language  of  India  should  be  English  and  that 
for  the  future  it  should  be  the  medium  through  which 
the  higher  education  of  the  natives  should  be  imparted, 
for  as  Macaulay  urged  : “ Whoever  knows  that  lan- 
guage has  ready  access  to  all  the  vast  intellectual 
wealth  which  all  the  wisest  nations  of  the  earth  have 
created  and  hoarded  in  the  course  of  ninety  genera- 
tions. It  may  safely  be  said  that  the  literature  now 
extant  in  that  language  is  of  far  greater  value 
than  all  the  literature  which  300  years  ago  was 
extant  in  all  the  languages  of  the  world  together. 
Nor  is  this  all.  In  India,  English  is  the  language 
spoken  by  the  ruling  class.  It  is  spoken  by  the  higher 
class  of  natives  at  the  seats  of  Government.  It  is 
likely  to  become  the  language  of  commerce  through- 
out the  seas  of  the  East.  It  is  the  language  of  two 
great  European  Communities  which  are  rising,  the 
one  in  the  south  of  Africa,  the  other  in  Australasia ; 
communities  which  are  every  year  becoming  more 
important  and  more  closely  connected  with  our  Indian 
Empire.  Whether  we  look  at  the  intrinsic  value  of 
our  literature  or  at  the  particular  situation  of  this 
country  we  shall  see  the  strongest  reason  to  think  that 
of  all  foreign  tongues,  the  English  tongue  is  that  which 
would  be  the  most  useful  to  our  native  subjects.” 


XII. 

LORD  AUCKLAND  (1836 — 1 842). — LORD  ELLEN- 
BOROUGH  ( 1 842 — 1844). — AFGHANISTAN. 

BEYOND  the  Company’s  dominions  the  Punjab, 
ruled  overby  Ranjit  Singh,  still  remained  unannexed. 
Further  to  the  west  was  the  wide-flowing  Indus,  a river 
the  glories  of  which  had  from  of  old  been  sung  by 
the  Vedic  Rishis.  It  was  to  the  ancient  poets  the 
boundary  of  the  Holy  Land  of  the  Five  Rivers 
separating  the  Aryan  people  from  the  wild,  fierce 
tribes  beyond.  It  was  the  unconquered,  mighty, 
swift  as  a young  horse,  fair  as  a maiden,  clothed  in 
rich  garments,  gems,  and  sweet  flowers.  Like  a 
king  of  battle  it  roared  with  the  roar  of  a bull, 
leading  its  tributaries  to  the  front ; from  before  all 
times  its  path  had  been  dug  out  by  the  gods  so 
that  their  worshippers  might  be  protected  by  its 
sea  of  waters.  Beyond  lay  the  boundaries  of  the 
world,  precipitous  mountain  ranges,  bleak  and  almost 
trackless,  weird  and  forbidding,  raising  their  peaks 
higher  and  higher  towards  the  lofty  barriers  of  the 
Hindu  Kush  and  lonely  solitudes  of  the  Pamirs  closing 
in  Afghanistan  from  Central  Asia. 

216 


RUSSIA  AND  AFGHANISTAN. 


217 


In  1809  Shuja-ul-Mulk,  grandson  of  the  first  Saduzai 
King  of  Afghanistan,  Ahmad  Shah,  had  been  driven 
forth  from  his  kingdom,  and  came  bearing  with  him 
the  famed  Koh-i-nur  diamond  wherewith  to  bid  for 
the  alliance  of  Ranji't  Singh,  the  Lion  of  Lahore. 
Shdh  Shuja  returned  to  Afghanistan  without  the 
Koh-i-nur.  In  exchange  for  it  he  received  from 
Ranji't  Singh  some  Sikh  warriors,  by  whose  aid  he 
hoped  to  take  Kandahar.  Dost  Muhammad  Kh£n, 
a rugged,  honest,  self-taught,  and  self-reliant  soldier 
of  the  Barakzai  clan,  who  had  assumed  sway  in 
Afghanistan,  again  drove  out  the  weak  and  distrusted 
Shah  Shuja,  only  to  find  to  his  rage  and  mortification 
that  the  crafty  ruler  of  the  Punjab  had  in  the  mean- 
time seized  the  adjoining  province  of  Peshawar,  the 
most  prized  of  all  the  possessions  of  Afghanistan. 
He  immediately  applied  to  Lord  Auckland  for  assist- 
ance in  recovering  his  lost  territories  from  Ranji't 
Singh. 

To  Lord  Auckland  the  situation  was  perplexing. 
He  dared  not  make  an  enemy  of  Ranji't  Singh,  yet  he 
was  anxious  to  gain  the  alliance  of  Afghanistan,  for  it 
was  important  that  a series  of  friendly  independent 
or  semi-independent  states  should  be  interposed 
between  the  Company’s  possessions  and  the  rapidly 
advancing  armies  of  Russia.  By  the  Treaty  of 
Turkmanchi,  in  1828,  Russia  had  wrested  from 
Persia  some  of  her  districts  on  the  north-west,  and 
received  over  3J  millions  sterling  as  an  indemnity 
for  the  war  expenses  as  well  as  an  acknowledgment 
of  a right  to  keep  an  armed  fleet  on  the  Caspian.  To 
counterplot  this  extension  of  Russia’s  influence,  Lieu- 


2 I 8 


LORD  AUCKLAND. 


tenant  Alexander  Burnes  was  sent  in  1830  on  an 
embassy  to  Ranji't  Singh,  in  1832  to  Bokhara,  and 
in  1836  to  Afghanistan.  The  Amir  was  willing  to 
agree  to  resist  all  Russian  intrigues,  and  remain  the 
firm  ally  of  the  Indian  Government  if  Lord  Auckland 
would  but  consent  to  assist  him  in  the  recovery  of 
Peshawar.  To  this  Lord  Auckland  would  not  con- 
sent. Dost  Muhammad  was  informed  that  it  had 
never  been  the  custom  of  the  British  Government 
to  interfere  in  the  affairs  or  disputes  of  independent 
states. 

The  Persian  troops,  led  by  a Russian  General, 
and  assisted  by  Russian  officers,  had  laid  siege  to 
Herat,  the  gateway  to  Afghanistan  and  India,  where 
the  garrison  held  out  under  the  command  of  Eldred 
Pottinger.  An  expedition  was  at  once  sent  from 
Bombay  up  the  Persian  Gulf,  and  landed  on  the 
island  of  Karak  which  so  frightened  the  Shah  of 
Persia  that  he  at  once  withdrew  his  troops  from  before 
Herdt.  The  siege  was  raised  on  the  8th  of  September, 
1838,  and  India  was  left  free  from  all  Russian  intrigues 
in  that  direction.  A graver  danger  threatened  from 
Kdbul.  Dost  Muhammad,  weary  of  the  demands 
of  Lord  Auckland,  who  would  give  no  promise  of 
support  in  return,  had  dismissed  Burnes  on  the 
26th  of  April,  1838,  and  received  the  Russian  envoy 
Captain  Viktevitch.  It  was  at  once  determined 
by  the  Governor-General  and  his  advisers  that 
Dost  Muhammad  should  be  deposed,  and  that  a 
King,  friendly  to  the  English,  should  be  placed 
on  the  throne  of  Afghanistan.  On  the  1st  of 
October,  1838,  a proclamation  was  issued  from 


INVASION  OF  AFGHANISTAN.  219 

Simla  announcing  that  the  Supreme  Council  had 
directed  the  assemblage  of  a British  force  for 
service  beyond  the  Indus,  in  order  “to  gain  for  the 
British  nation  in  Central  Asia  that  legitimate 
influence  which  an  interchange  of  benefits  would 
naturally  produce.”  The  new  King  had,  however, 
to  be  found  to  replace  the  self-willed  Dost 
Muhammad.  Shah  Shuja,  who  had  been  thrust 
forth  from  Afghanistan  by  his  own  people,  resided 
at  Ludhiana,  a pensioner  of  the  East  India  Company, 
and  was  willing  to  promise  all  things,  to  remain  a 
firm  ally  of  the  English,  to  banish  the  Russians, 
and  leave  Peshawar  safe  in  the  keeping  of  Ranjit 
Singh.  It  was  therefore  further  proclaimed  by  the 
Governor-General  that  “ His  Majesty,  Shujd-ul-Mulk, 
will  enter  Afghanistan  surrounded  by  his  own  troops, 
and  will  be  supported  against  foreign  interference  and 
factious  opposition  by  a British  army.  The  Governor- 
General  confidently  hopes  that  the  Shfih  will  be 
speedily  replaced  on  his  throne  by  his  own  subjects 
and  adherents,  and  when  he  shall  be  secured  in 
•power,  and  the  independence  and  integrity  of 
Afghanistan  established,  the  British  army  will  be 
withdrawn.” 

Under  Sir  Willoughby  Cotton,  an  army  of  9,500 
picked  men,  and  four  times  the  number  of  camp 
followers,  crossed  the  Indus  at  Rohri,  while  Sir  John 
Keane,  with  5,600  men  from  Bombay,  advanced  along 
the  Indus  to  join  the  main  body  from  Bengal,  our 
“ ancient  and  faithful  ally,”  Ranjit  Singh,  refusing  to 
allow  a large  force  to  pass  through  his  dominions 
towards  the  direct  route  to  Afghanistan  by  way  of  the 


220 


LORD  AUCKLAND. 


Khaibar  Pass.  As  the  expedition  passed  through 
Sind,  held  to  be  a tributary  of  Afghanistan,  its  chief- 
tains were  reduced  to  submission  and  made  to  pay 
tribute,  the  Political  Agent  having  been  directed  to 
inform  them  that  if  they  resisted,  “ neither  the 
ready  power  to  crush  and  annihilate  them,  nor  the 
will  to  call  it  into  action  were  wanting  if  it  appeared 
requisite,  however  remotely,  for  the  safety  and 
integrity  of  the  Anglo-Indian  Empire  and  frontier.” 
After  a long  and  weary  journey  through  unknown 
deserts  where  neither  supplies  nor  water  could  be 
obtained,  the  expedition  under  Cotton  reached  the 
Boldn  Pass  on  the  ioth  of  March.  It  had  already 
suffered  heavy  losses  in  horses,  camels,  and  camp 
followers,  the  baggage  having  been  plundered  on  the 
route  by  the  uncouth  Baluchi'  robbers  who  came  swarm- 
ing round.  Through  the  bleak  Bolan  Pass  the  dis- 
pirited, cold,  and  half-fed  soldiers  held  on  their  way 
till  they  reached  Quetta,  where  Sir  John  Keane 
assumed  command,  and  led  them  on  through  the 
Khojak  Pass  towards  Kandahar. 

On  the  8th  of  May  his  Majesty  Shah  Shujd  was 
paraded  through  the  streets  of  Kandahar  at  the  head 
of  the  combined  British  troops  to  receive  the  homage 
of  his  wondering  subjects  who  turned  away  in  sullen 
indifference  from  their  new  King,  those  alone  remain- 
ing whom  British  gold  had  won,  or  hopes  of  future 
favours  held  subservient.  On  the  2 1st  of  July  the 
British  arm}-  carried  Shah  Shuja  on  to  Ghazni  with 
but  two  days’  supplies  in  the  camp  and  no  prospect 
of  obtaining  more  in  a hostile  land.  The  gates  of 
Ghazni  were  blown  open  by  Lieutenant  Durand, and  in 


OUTRAN. 


222 


LORD  AUCKLAND. 


the  desperate  struggle  which  ensued  for  the  possession 
of  the  fortress  Colonel  Sale  was  cut  across  the  face 
with  a tulwar,  two  hundred  of  the  British  troops  fell, 
killed  and  wounded,  and  the  fierce  Afghan  defenders 
lost  five  hundred  of  their  number  before  they  sur- 
rendered their  stronghold  and  its  supplies  to  the  hated 
foreigners  and  their  pujopet  King.  On  the  fall  of 
Ghazni  the  Governor-General  obtained  an  Earldom, 
Sir  John  Keane  a Peerage,  Macnaghten  and  Pottinger 
Baronetcies.  Dost  Muhammad,  on  hearing  the  news 
of  the  fall  of  Ghazni  fled  from  Kabul  across  the 
Hindu  Kush,  accompanied  by  his  son,  Akbar  Khan. 
For  six  days  and  nights  the  brave  James  Outram  and 
George  Lawrence,  with  one  hundred  followers,  rode 
after  the  flying  monarch,  past  the  fortified  Afghan 
villages,  over  the  steep  passes  of  the  Hindu  Kush  to 
Bamian,  but  their  guides  had  been  bribed  to  delay  on 
the  road,  so  the  exiled  King  escaped  to  seek  aid  far 
away.  Shah  Shuja,  brilliantly  arrayed  and  decked 
with  jewels,  was  led  on  a white  charger  through  the 
bazaars  of  Kabul,  where  the  people  rose  not  to  salaam 
before  him,  but  sat  scowling  beneath  their  shaggy 
eyebrows  at  the  foreigners  who  had  come  to  seek  out 
the  secrets  of  their  homes  and  rule  them  with  a rod 
of  iron. 

The  Governor-General  had  proclaimed  that  when 
the  King  of  Afghanistan  “ shall  be  secured  in  power, 
and  the  independence  and  integrity  of  Afghanistan 
established,  the  British  Army  will  be  withdrawn.” 

The  King  who  could  alone  be  established  in  power 
in  Afghanistan  was  the  able  ruler,  Dost  Muhammad, 
who  had  for  a time  fled,  and  the  British  army  sub- 


SHAH  SHUJA. 


223 


sequently  withdrawn  was  not  the  army  that  paraded 
Shah  Shuja  through  the  streets  of  Kabul  as  their 
chosen  ally,  but  the  army  that  came  to  avenge  its 
slaughter  and  acknowledge  the  right  of  Dost  Mu- 
hammad to  reign. 

Ten  thousand  British  soldiers  remained  in  Afghan- 
istan during  the  winter  of  1839  to  support  the  weak 
Shah  Shuja.  To  conciliate  the  fierce  Pathan  hill 
robbers  of  the  passes  lying  between  Kabul  and  the 
Punjab  a yearly  subsidy  was  promised  them  by  the 
British  envoy,  while  to  the  Ghilzai  tribesmen  an  annual 
allowance  of  £3,000  was  meted  out  in  order  to 
induce  them  to  abstain  from  raiding  the  convoys 
travelling  to  and  from  Ghazni  and  Kandahar.  The 
winter  passed  away  in  ominous  quiet.  At  the  request 
of  Shah  Shuja  the  British  troops  were  removed  from 
the  spacious  and  well-fortified  citadel,  the  Bala 
Hissar,  which  commanded  the  city  from  the  west, 
and  lodged  in  an  open  space,  surrounded  by  weak 
mud  walls,  known  as  the  cantonments,  a position  well 
within  range  of  the  neighbouring  forts  and  hills. 
Still  no  one  dreamed  of  danger.  Dost  Muhammad 
was  an  exile  in  Bokhara,  where  the  British  envoys, 
Connolly  and  Stoddart  were  kept  in  cruel  captivity 
and  afterwards  murdered.  D’Arcy  Todd  was  sup- 
posed to  have  wron  by  his  gold  the  friendship  of  the 
ruler  of  Herat,  while,  in  November,  1839,  the  Russians 
had  fallen  back  with  fearful  loss  to  Orenburg  after 
their  disastrous  effort  to  penetrate  the  sandy  deserts 
lying  round  Khiva. 

Peace  seemed  assured  from  the  Indus  to  the  Oxus. 
Shah  Shuja  listened  with  becoming  submission  to  the 


224 


LORD  AUCKLAND. 


advice  of  Sir  William  Macnaghten,  the  British  envoy, 
while  Dr.  Lord  ruled  and  raided  the  chieftains  round 
Bamian,  beyond  the  Hindu  Kush,  as  though  he  were 
King  over  the  lands  of  the  weak  Shah  Shuja.  Wise 
men  had  declared  before  the  war  began  that  the 
difficulties  would  only  commence  when  the  army  had 
fully  occupied  the  land,  and  that  not  a man  would 
return  alive  to  tell  the  tale  of  Afghan  treachery  and 
vengeance.  All  these  gloomy  forebodings  were 
forgotten,  and  the  envoy  rode  through  the  streets  of 
Kabul  in  fancied  security.  The  English  officers 
brought  their  wives  from  India,  the  nobles  of 
Afghanistan  came  to  visit  the  gardens  in  the  canton- 
ments, bringing  presents  of  grapes,  melons,  and 
peaches,  eager  to  learn  how  to  grow  potatoes,  peas, 
and  other  vegetables.  None  seemed  to  note,  or  if 
they  did,  to  care,  how  the  rage  daily  burned  in  the 
hearts  of  the  wild,  fierce  Afghans,  as  the  hated 
foreigners  wandered  through  their  villages  and  passed 
down  their  streets,  treating  with  haughty  contempt 
their  jealous  looks.  A tremor  of  unrest  ran  through 
the  garrison,  and  the  guns  were  hastily  mounted 
within  the  mud  walls  of  the  cantonments  when  the 
news  came  that  Dost  Muhammad  had  been  released 
by  the  Khan  of  Bokhara,  and  was  advancing  towards 
Bamian  at  the  head  of  an  army  of  Uzbek  and 
Hazara  cavalry.  Later  on  came  the  tidings  that  the 
Bengal  cavalry  had  refused  to  charge  against  the 
advancing  foe  and  had  looked  on  while  Dr.  Lord  was 
slain,  and  their  officers,  Fraser  and  Ponsonby,  driven 
back,  wounded  and  disabled,  to  carry  the  news  of 
their  defeat  to  Sir  Robert  Sale.  It  was  but  a shadow 


DOST  MUHAMMAD. 


225 


that  had  fallen  across  the  path  of  the  British  envoy. 
On  the  evening  of  the  4th  of  November,  1840,  Sir 
William  Macnaghten  was  riding  home  sad  and 
dejected  by  the  side  of  George  Lawrence,  when  “ a 
robust,  powerful  man,  with  a sharp  aquiline  nose,  highly 
arched  eyebrows,  and  a grey  beard  and  moustache 
which  evidently  had  not  been  trimmed  for  a long 
time,”  rode  rapidly  up  to  them,  dismounted  from  his 
horse  and  seized  the  stirrup  of  the  envoy,  bowing 
down  in  submissive  salutation.  It  was  the  unfortunate 
Dost  Muhammad  who,  weary  of  his  exile  and  know- 
ing that  he  could  no  longer  resist  his  fate,  had  ridden 
in  to  surrender.  He  was  escorted  into  India  by  Sir 
Willoughby  Cotton,  where  he  was  allowed  to  reside, 
being  granted  a pension  of  £20, 000  a year,  his  free 
and  open  manners,  his  strength  of  character  and 
honesty  making  his  former  foes  regret  that  they  had 
ever  quarrelled  with  him.  Shah  Shuja,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  bluntly  described  by  General  Nott  as 
“ certainly  as  great  a scoundrel  as  ever  lived.”  He 
was  despised  and  hated  by  his  own  subjects,  his 
British  allies  would  have  been  glad  if  they  could 
have  honestly  abandoned  him.  The  occupation  of 
Afghanistan  was  costing  the  Indian  Government  over 
ij  millions  sterling  annually;  the  military  officers, 
chafing  at  the  secret  intrigues  and  vacillating  policy 
of  the  political  officers,  were  weary  of  the  whole 
business,  and  contented  themselves  with  prognosti- 
cating ultimate  failure  and  disaster. 

Herat  had  been  abandoned  when  it  was  found  that 
its  ruler  had  only  pretended  friendship  so  long  as  he 
could  obtain  money  from  the  British  envoy  stationed 

16 


226 


LORD  AUCKLAND. 


there.  On  Sir  William  Macnaghten  the  Governor- 
General  impressed  the  necessity  of  making  all  possible 
financial  retrenchments : consequently  the  yearly 
subsidy  to  the  hill  tribesmen  was  withheld,  whereon 
they  once  again  commenced  their  old  guerilla  war- 
fare, and  had  to  be  bought  off  by  Sale,  who,  while 
endeavouring  to  return  to  India,  was  attacked  by  them 
in  the  defiles  of  the  Khurd  Kabul  passes.  In  the 
midst  of  all  the  uncertainties  and  dangers  gathering 
round,  the  Governor-General  appointed  General 
Elphinstone  to  the  command  of  the  army  of  occu- 
pation, notwithstanding  the  brave  old  soldier’s  remon- 
strances that  he  was  physically  unsuited  for  the  post, 
for  as  he  wrote  “ if  anything  were  to  turn  up  I am 
unfit  for  it,  done  up  in  body  and  mind.” 

Not  only  was  the  Commander-in-Chief  incompetent 
to  command  the  army,  not  only  were  the  cantonments 
practically  defenceless,  but  the  envoy,  Sir  William 
Macnaghten,  was  pledged  to  see  nothing  but  success 
follow  from  all  his  negotiations,  notwithstanding  the 
fact  that  he  had  received  reliable  news  that  the 
Afghans  had  sworn  that  not  a foreigner  would  leave 
the  country  alive,  and  his  destined  successor,  Sir 
Alexander  Burnes,  lived  in  the  city,  carrying  on  in 
fancied  security  his  own  intrigues  in  the  midst  of 
bitter  foes,  who  met  nightly  to  discuss  how  they 
might  avenge  the  insults  he  had  showered  on  them. 
Sudden  and  swift  as  a raging  cyclonic  storm  the 
devious  course  of  the  pent-up  fury  of  the  Afghan 
race  burst  on  the  unsuspecting  garrison,  guilty  and 
innocent  alike.  No  pen  has  dared  to  fully  tell  the 
tale  of  insult  the  Afghans  may  have  had  to  avenge ; 


sikandar"  burnes. 


22  7 


the  terrible  vengeance  they  poured  forth  on  the  in- 
vaders of  their  land  and  homes  will  ever  overshadow 
and  obliterate  the  memory  of  the  acts  and  deeds  they 
so  savagely  and  indiscriminately  punished. 

On  the  ist  of  November,  1841,  Sir  William  Mac- 
naghten  wrote  that  all  was  well,  that  the  land  “ was 
perfectly  quiet  from  Dan  to  Beersheba.”  Early  the 
next  morning  the  bazaars  of  Kabul  were  filled  with 
excited  crowds  of  armed  Afghans,  who  surged  to 
and  fro  calling  for  the  blood  of  “ Sikandar  ” Burnes 
and  the  gold  in  the  British  Treasury.  As  Sir 

Alexander  Burnes  looked  forth  from  the  house 
where  he  had  .chosen  to  live  in  the  midst  of  the 
city,  he  heard  the  angry  roar  and  saw  the  Treasury 
in  flames  and  his  own  stables  burning.  Well  he 
must  have  known  what  the  outbreak  meant,  well  he 
must  have  felt  that  he  of  all  men  could  hope  for  no 
mercy.  As  he  came  forth  to  speak  the  bullets  flew 
past  him,  and  below,  the  wild  eyes  of  the  Afghans 
told  their  hate  and  savage  determination  to  reap  a 
fearful  vengeance  for  all  past  wrongs.  The  brave 
Broadfoot  fell  by  his  side ; still  the  crowd  called  for 
the  life  of  “ Sikandar  ” Burnes.  Burnes  and  his 
brother,  disguised  as  natives,  essayed  to  escape 
unnoticed  through  the  surrounding  crowd,  but  as 
they  stole  out  they  were  cut  to  pieces  by  the 
cruel,  sharp,  heavy  knives  of  the  infuriated  Afghans 
Shah  Shuja’s  sepoy  guards  tried  to  make  their  way 
through  the  crowded  streets,  where  they  were  fired  at 
from  the  housetops  and  forced  to  retreat.  From  the 
city,  where  the  Treasury  and  house  of  Burnes  were  in 
flames,  guns  opened  fire  on  the  King’s  palace.  From 


228 


LORD  AUCKLAND. 


the  British  force  of  five  thousand  fighting  men  at  the 
cantonments  no  help  came.  George  Lawrence,  who 
rode  to  the  King  for  orders,  was  cut  at  by  an  Afghan, 
one  of  his  escort  was  wounded,  and  he  had  to  flee  for 
his  life.  Captain  Sturt  of  the  Engineers,  son-in-law 
of  Sir  Robert  Sale,  was  stabbed  at  the  palace  gates  and 


KABUL. 

(From  “ Journal  of  an  Afghanistan  Prisoner 
by  Lieut.  Vincent  Eyre.) 

carried  back  senseless  to  the  cantonments.  The  King, 
pallid  with  fear,  not  knowing  whom  to  trust,  gave 
orders  and  then  countermanded  them,  kept  the  British 
force,  which  had  arrived  about  noon  from  the  Siya 
Sang  heights,  waiting  so  long  that  there  was  nothing 
left  for  them  to  do  but  cover  the  retreat  of  the  sepoy 


IP  & & X? 

of 


Jrarrounbuig 


FLIGHT. 


229 


guards  from  the  city.  In  the  cantonments  Mac- 
naghten  rode  sadly  to  and  fro,  wondering  how  they 
would  receive  the  news  in  India,  trying  to  persuade 
himself  that  the  outbreak  would  soon  be  over,  while 
Brigadier  Shelton  declared  his  willingness  to  fight, 
but  his  belief  that  there  was  no  hope  for  the  army 
of  occupation  but  instant  flight  from  the  land  so 
full  of  ill-fate  to  the  British.  The  day  wore  on 
and  nothing  was  done.  Inaction  was  followed  by 
despondency,  soon  to  give  way  to  sullen  indifference. 
From  the  surrounding  villages  the  tribesmen  thronged 
into  the  city.  From  Jaldlabad  to  Kabul,  and  from 
Kabul  to  Kandahar  the  land  was  full  of  fierce  foes. 
The  fort  holding  all  the  supplies,  stores,  and  pro- 
visions for  the  army  of  occupation  was  abandoned 
to  the  enemy,  leaving  but  two  days’  food  in  the 
cantonment  for  a garrison  of  five  thousand  men  and 
over  twelve  thousand  camp  followers.  The  British 
position  was  untenable.  From  the  neighbouring  hills 
and  surrounding  forts  the  Afghans  picked  off  the 
garrison  with  unerring  aim,  firing  from  rests  their 
long  Jazails  or  guns,  which  carried  further  than  the 
English  muskets.  There  was  no  course  open  to  the 
envoy  but  to  make  the  best  terms  he  could  with 
the  enemy  and  secure  his  retreat  to  India.  On 
the  nth  of  December  he  promised  to  give  back  to 
the  chiefs  their  chosen  King  Dost  Muhammad,  and  to 
abandon  Shah  Shuja  if  the  British  army  were  allowed 
to  march  in  safety  out  of  Afghanistan.  The  treaty 
once  made,  Macnaghten  repented.  He  could  not 
bear  to  think  that  his  long-hoped  march  of  triumph 
would  be  turned  to  an  ignominious  retreat,  and  all  his 


230 


LORD  AUCKLAND. 


bombastic  boast  over  the  success  of  his  mission  to 
be  silenced  for  ever.  He  determined  to  make  one 
final  struggle  to  extricate  himself  from  his  difficulties 
before  he  surrendered.  Secret  negotiations  were 
opened  up  with  some  of  the  treacherous  Afghan 
chiefs  to  see  if  they  could  be  bribed  to  take  the 
side  of  the  English  and  abandon  the  national  cause 
and  Dost  Muhammad.  To  Akbar  Khan,  son  of  Dost 
Muhammad,  the  envoy  offered  the  sum  of  £300,000, 
a pension  of  £400,000,  and  to  make  him  Prime 
Minister  if  he  would  yet  stay  his  hand  and  support 
the  still  reigning  sovereign,  Shah  Shuja.  To  all 
Akbar  Khan  feigned  to  agree.  He  asked  Mac- 
naghten  to  come  out  from  the  cantonments  and 
meet  him  on  the  neighbouring  slopes  of  the  Siyd 
Sang  hills,  where  the  new  treaty  might  in  secret 
be  ratified.  The  envoy,  though  warned  not  to  trust 
himself  within  the  power  of  the  Afghan,  would  not 
listen.  Perhaps  he  still  trusted  in  his  own  diplomatic 
powers,  or  it  may  be  he  resolved  to  stake  his  life  in 
a final  effort  to  retrieve  the  situation.  With  George 
Lawrence,  Captain  Colin  Mackenzie,  and  Captain 
Trevor  he  rode  forth  on  the  23rd  of  December  to 
meet  Akbar  Khan,  who  sat  waiting  on  a mound  not 
three  hundred  yards  from  the  cantonments,  surrounded 
by  his  chieftains  and  guards.  As  they  drew  near  the 
Afghans  closed  round,  Akbar  Khan  seized  Sir  William 
Macnaghten  by  the  left  wrist,  and  as  the  envoy 
struggled  and  cried  out,  “For  the  love  of  God!” 
Akbar  Khan  in  a sudden  fury  of  passion  drew  a 
pistol  from  his  waist  and  fired.  Macnaghten  fell, 
and  in  an  instant  was  hewn  to  pieces  by  the  sharp 


THE  RETREAT. 


231 


knives  of  the  guards.  The  envoy’s  head  was  carried 
to  Kdbul,  paraded  through  the  city,  and  then  hung 
up  in  the  market-place  for  the  crowd  to  jeer  at. 
Lawrence  and  Mackenzie  were  seized  and  carried 
away  on  horseback,  Trevor  was  cut  down  as  he 
struggled  to  escape.  The  garrison  watched  the 
affray  from  the  cantonments,  in  their  consternation 
crowding  round  Macnaghten’s  escort  as  it  rode  back, 
to  learn  full  details  of  the  disaster.  The  cry  was  for 
an  immediate  retreat  on  Jalalabad,  where  Sir  Robert 
Sale  was  entrenched.  On  New  Year’s  Day  of  1842 
all  the  enemy’s  demands  were  acceded  to.  Hostages 
were  given  for  the  immediate  evacuation  of  the  country. 
The  spare  guns,  arms,  and  ammunition  were  delivered 
up,  the  army  retaining  only  six  field-pieces.  All  the 
money  in  the  military  chest  was  paid  over  to  the  Afghan 
chiefs,  6^  lakhs  of  rupees  being  promised  to  them  when 
the  retreating  force  was  again  safe  on  Indian  soil. 

All  around,  the  frozen  ground  lay  buried  a foot 
deep  beneath  the  falling  snow.  In  the  cantonments 
the  sullen  British  soldiers,  the  cowering  sepoys,  the 
half-starved  camp  followers  as  they  crouched  round 
their  flickering  fires  made  up  of  stolen  furniture,  the 
women — some  with  new-born  children — all  heard  with 
weary  indifference  the  order  given  for  the  march 
across  the  bleak  mountains  for  Jalalabad.  By  many 
the  words  which  Lady  Sale,  in  those  sad  hours,  kept 
repeating  to  herself  must  have  been  remembered  with 
an  equally  woful  significance  : — 

“ Few,  few  shall  part  where  many  meet, 

The  snow  shall  be  their  winding  sheet ; 

And  every  turf  beneath  their  feet 
Shall  be  a soldier’s  sepulchre.” 


232 


LORD  AUCKLAXD. 


On  the  morning  of  the  6th  of  January  4,500 
fighting  men,  enough  in  fair  fight  to  have  hurled  the 
cowardly  Afghans  back  to  their  dens,  12,000  camp 
followers,  men,  women,  and  children  passed  over  the 
razed  cantonment  walls  on  the  long  march  which 
few  survived  to  tell  of.  Before  the  rear-guard  had 
joined  in,  the  deserted  houses  in  the  cantonments 
were  pillaged  and  burned,  the  baggage  and  spare 
stores  carried  away.  As  the  half-frozen  camp 
followers  sank  weary  by  the  roadside,  they  were  slain 
by  the  marauding  Afghans  who  followed  up  their 
retreating  foe,  firing  with  their  long-ranged  Jazails 
into  the  straggling  ranks. 

Through  deep  snow,  through  icy  rivers,  brooks,  and 
rivulets  the  band  marched  on,  their  clothes  frozen 
and  stiff,  to  reach  their  camp,  only  five  miles  out  from 
Kabul,  where  neither  food  nor  tents  awaited  them. 
That  night  many  sank  to  sleep  who  never  woke. 
The  survivors  needed  no  bugle-call  to  summon  them 
in  the  early  morning  to  rise  and  once  again  face 
death.  The  guns  were  spiked  and  left  behind,  the 
numbed  sepoys  threw  away  the  muskets  they  could 
no  longer  carry.  In  front  lay  the  long  journey  of 
one  hundred  miles  to  Jalalabad  over  precipitous 
mountain-peaks.  From  the  hillsides  the  Ghilzai 
mountaineers  rolled  down  rocks,  and  fired  into  the 
crowded  mass  of  soldiers  and  camp  followers.  Before 
five  miles’  march  was  accomplished  500  soldiers  and 
2,500  followers  had  fallen.  Women  carrying  infant 
children  struggled  on ; Lady  Sale,  with  a bullet  in  her 
arm  and  three  bullet-holes  through  her  mantle,  had 
to  remain  behind  and  comfort  her  daughter,  who  sat 


DR.  BRYDON. 


weeping  by  the  side  of  her  husband,  the  gallant 
Engineer  officer  Sturt,  now  wounded  to  death  by  the 
stroke  from  an  Afghdn  knife.  The  end  was  close  at 
hand.  On  the  next  day,  the  9th,  the  surviving  women 
and  children,  along  with  Lawrence,  Pottinger,  and 
Mackenzie,  were  given  up  as  hostages  to  Akbar  Khdn. 

Not  a single  sepoy  of  those  who  left  Kdbul  on  the 
6th  of  January  lived  to  reach  the  Haft  Kotal  Pass  on 
the  morning  of  the  10th,  and  by  night-time  of  the 
same  day  only  250  white  men  reached  the  Tazin 
Valley,  8,200  feet  above  the  sea  level.  The  next 
day  two  hundred  fought  their  way  on  to  the  Jagdalak 
Pass,  where  Elphinstone  and  Shelton  were  detained 
as  hostages  by  Akbar  Khan.  The  remainder  still 
fought  with  all  the  desperation  of  despair,  tore  down 
the  barricades  of  stone  and  interlaced  trees  that 
blocked  their  path,  and  turned  again  and  again  to 
face  their  relentless  foes.  Step  by  step  death  marched 
by  the  side  of  the  last  few  remaining  victims.  The 
hill  clansmen  had  sworn  to  let  no  foreign  foe  escape 
alive  through  their  mountain  passes,  of  which  they 
held  themselves  the  hereditary  guardians.  With  calm 
patience  they  followed  the  dwindling  band  of  heroes. 

On  the  road  to  Gandamak  the  last  survivors  fell 
one  by  one.  At  Fathabad  six  officers,  all  that  re- 
mained, stayed  to  beg  for  food,  and  but  three  escaped 
to  ride  on  towards  Jalalabad.  Two  were  cut  down 
when  within  two  miles  of  safety,  and  Dr.  Brydon  alone 
remained,  except  those  left  behind  as  hostages,  out 
of  the  16,500  who  had  marched  out  of  Kabul.  By 
his  side  rode  a fierce  Afghan  horseman,  waiting  for 
an  opportunity  to  rush  in  and  slay  the  last  of  the 


LORD  AUCKLAND. 


2 34 

foreigners.  Dr.  Brydon’s  wearied  horse  made  one 
fatal  stumble,  the  Afghan  rode  in  and  Brydon’s  sword 
was  severed  at  the  handle  and  his  knee  deep  wounded. 
As  Brydon  learned  forward  in  pain,  the  Afghan,  fear- 
ing the  Englishman  was  about  to  draw  a pistol,  rode 
away  in  haste,  leaving  the  sole  survivor  to  carry  the 
news  of  the  fatal  retreat  to  Jalalabad,  where  the 
garrison  gazed  forth  from  the  walls,  wondering  what 
strange  fate  brought  the  jaded  horseman  from  the 
lonely  mountains  across  the  desert  valley. 

All  night  the  beacon  fires  blazed  forth,  and  the  clarion 
note  of  the  trumpet  sent  forth  by  the  sentinels  on  the 
walls  of  Jalalabad  died  away  to  a moan  up  the 
mountain-sides,  as  if  in  mournful  lament  that  there 
was  no  one  left  to  steal  forth  from  the  long  valley 
of  death.  From  trembling  lip  to  trembling  lip  the 
tale  of  woe  was  whispered  among  the  defenders  of 
Jaldlabad,  but  along  the  bleak  hillsides  of  the  Khurd 
Kabul  Pass  the  fallen  bodies  of  the  soldiers  lay  wrapt 
around  with  deep  silence,  where  they  remained,  the 
sole  memorials  of  the  disastrous  advance  of  the  British 
army  into  Afghanistan. 

Of  those  that  left  Kabul  120,  including  Lady  Sale 
and  Lady  Macnaghten,  remained  alive  in  the  hands 
of  Akbar  Khan,  while  a few  sepoys  escaped  to 
Peshawar  to  spread  the  story  of  retreat  through  the 
villages  of  the  Punjab. 

The  garrison  at  Ghazni  had  surrendered,  the  officers, 
including  John  Nicholson,  who  afterwards  fell  at  the 
siege  of  Delhi  during  the  Mutiny,  being  taken 
prisoners  to  Kabul.  At  Kandahar  Nott  and  Raw- 
linson — afterwards  Sir  Henry — held  out ; at  Jala- 


WITHDRAWAL.  23  5 

labad  Sale,  Broadfoot,  and  Lawrence  remained 
entrenched. 

Lord  Auckland  sank  beneath  the  crushing  weight 
of  the  “ unparalleled  errors  ” and  “ unparalleled  disas- 
ters ” which  had  signalised  his  Governor-Generalship, 
and  he  returned  home,  to  leave  to  other  hands  the 
rescue  of  the  prisoners  and  relief  of  the  garrisons  still 
bravely  holding  out  at  Kandahar  and  Jalalabad. 

Lord  Ellenborough  reached  Calcutta  as  the  new 
Governor-General  on  the  28th  of  February,  1842, 
the  herald  of  a new  policy  according  to  which  Sale 
was  to  be  relieved  at  Jalalabad,  and  Nott  at  Kandahar, 
after  which  the  troops  were  to  be  “ withdrawn  ulti- 
mately from  Afghanistan,  not  from  any  deficiency  of 
means  to  maintain  our  position,  but  because  we  are 
all  satisfied  that  the  King  we  have  set  up  has  not,  as 
we  were  erroneously  led  to  imagine,  the  support  of 
the  nation  over  which  he  has  been  placed.” 

Shah  Shuja,  as  a matter  of  fact,  was  killed  at  Kabul 
on  the  5th  of  April,  and  his  body  thrown  into  a ditch, 
Akbar  Khan  having  assumed  the  sovereignty  in  the 
absence  of  his  father,  Dost  Muhammad. 

Not  till  the  same  month  was  General  Pollock, 
aided  by  George  Clerk  and  Henry  Havelock,  able 
to  restore  heart  to  the  sepoys  of  the  relieving  force 
who  had  lost  all  confidence  in  their  officers,  and  lead 
them  through  the  Khaibar  Pass. 

Jalalabad  once  relieved,  Lord  Ellenborough  was 
reluctantly  obliged  to  consent  that  the  garrison  from 
Kandahar  should  join  the  troops  under  Pollock  and 
Sale  at  Kabul  and  rescue  the  prisoners  from  the  hands 
of  Akbar  Khdn. 


-3^ 


LORD  AUCKLAND. 


Ghazni'  was  accordingly  taken  and  razed  to  the 
ground  by  Nott,  and  the  Khurd  Kabul  passes  cleared 
of  the  opposing  tribesmen  by  General  Pollock.  By  the 
14th  of  September  the  British  colours  were  flying  once 
more  over  the  citadel  at  Kabul,  and  the  prisoners, 
with  the  exception  of  General  Elphinstone,  who  had 
died  regretted  by  all,  safe  among  their  friends  and 
relations.  The  Great  Bazaar  was  blown  up,  and 
unfortunately  much  of  the  city'  was  given  over  to 
indiscriminate  pillage  and  plunder. 

On  the  1st  of  October,  1842,  exactly  four  years 
after  Lord  Auckland’s  unfortunate  declaration  of  war 
the  future  policy  of  the  Governor-General  was  declared 
by  proclamation  from  Simla  by  the  Secret  Depart- 
ment of  the  Indian  Council  in  the  following  high- 
sounding  words  : — “ Disasters  unparalleled  in  their 
extent,  unless  by  the  errors  in  which  they  originated, 
and  by  the  treachery  by  which  they  were  completed 
have  in  one  short  campaign  been  avenged  upon  every 
scene  of  past  misfortune;  and  repeated  victories  in  the 
field  . . . have  again  attached  the  opinion  of  invincibility 
to  the  British  rule. 

“ The  British  Army  in  possession  of  Afghanistan 
will  now  be  withdrawn  to  the  Satledge.  The 
Governor-General  will  leave  it  to  the  Afghans 
themselves  to  create  a government  amidst  the 
anarchy  which  is  the  consequence  of  their  crimes. 

“ Content  with  the  limits  nature  appears  to  have 
assigned  to  its  empire,  the  government  of  India  will 
devote  all  its  efforts  to  the  establishment  and 
maintenance  of  general  peace,  to  the  protection 
of  the  Sovereigns  and  Chiefs  its  allies,  and  to 


SIND. 


23  7 


the  prosperity  and  happiness  of  its  own  faithful 
subjects. 

“ The  rivers  of  the  Punjab  and  the  Indus,  and  the 
mountain  passes,  and  the  barbarous  tribes  of  Afghan- 
istan, will  be  placed  between  the  British  army  and  an 
enemy  approaching  from  the  west — if,  indeed,  such 
an  enemy  there  can  be — and  no  longer  between  the 
army  and  its  supplies.” 

The  army  returned  to  India  in  triumph  ; Dost 
Muhammad  went  back  to  Afghanistan  to  establish 
his  rule  firmer  than  it  had  ever  been,  his  last  per- 
plexing remark  to  the  Governor-General  being  that 
he  could  not  understand  why  he  had  been  deprived 
of  his  “ poor  and  barren  country.” 

The  answer  to  the  question  lies  in  the  future.  As 
long  as  the  ruler  of  Afghanistan  holds  his  state 
independent  from  foreign  influence  and  is  able  to 
preserve  internal  peace  and  prosperity,  it  will  be  to 
the  interests  of  British  rule  in  India  to  court  his 
alliance,  support  his  administration,  and  by  all  pos- 
sible means  strengthen  his  position. 

In  1842  the  lesson  was  learned  that  Afghanistan 
held  the  elements  out  of  which  an  independent  and 
united  nationality  might  possibly  in  time  be  evolved, 
and  that,  notwithstanding  the  vast  distance  of  the 
British  army  from  its  basis,  and  the  follies  of  its  com- 
manders, its  power  could  not  ultimately  be  resisted 
by  any  state  surrounding  its  borders. 

One  immediate  result  of  the  war  with  Afghanistan 
was  the  conquest  of  Sind  by  Sir  Charles  Napier. 

Sind  was  originally  subordinate  to  Afghanistan,  its 
Muhammadan  rulers,  or  Amirs,  holding  a semi-inde- 


238 


LORD  AUCKLAND . 


pendent  authority  along  the  lower  valleys  of  the 
Indus.  After  the  retreat  of  the  British  army  from 
Kabul  some  of  the  Amirs  became  refractory,  as  was 
their  wont  when  occasion  offered,  and  repudiated  the 
treaties  they  had  made  to  preserve  peace.  Lord 
Ellenborough  thereupon  resolved  to  declare  war  with 
them  and  annex  their  country.  The  political  morality 
of  this  resolution  was  tersely  summed  up  by  Sir 
Charles  Napier,  who  wrote,  “We  have  no  right  to 
seize  Sind,  yet  we  shall  do  so,  and  a very  advanta- 
geous, useful,  and  humane  piece  of  rascality  it  will  be.” 
Sir  Charles  Napier  marched  with  2,700  men  against 
the  army  of  Sind,  consisting  of  over  20,000  Baluchis, 
whom  he  completely  defeated  at  the  battle  of  Miani. 
The  final  result  of  the  victory  was  telegraphed  by 
Sir  Charles  Napier  to  the  Governor-General  in  the 
following  words : “ I have  Sind  (sinned).” 

One  last  war  occupied  Lord  Ellenborough  before 
he  was  recalled,  in  June,  1843,  by  the  Directors  who 
were  more  than  dissatisfied  with  his  erratic  policy 
and  fondness  for  military  display.  On  the  death  of 
Jhankuji  Sindhia,  in  1843,  his  widow,  Tara  Bhai,  a 
girl  of  twelve,  adopted  a relative  aged  eight  as  son 
and  heir,  whom  she  succeeded  in  having  enthroned 
at  Gwalior  as  Jaiajf  Rao  Sindhia.  The  Governor- 
General  and  Tara  Bhai  disagreed  on  the  choice  of  a 
regent,  a disagreement  which  ultimately  resulted  in 
a declaration  of  war.  The  army  of  Gwalior,  which 
had  reached  upwards  of  30,000  infantry  and  10,000 
cavalry,  was  defeated  by  the  Commander-in-Chief, 
Sir  Hugh  Gough,  at  Maharajpur,  both  sides  losing 
heavily. 


MARATHAS. 


239 


In  a final  battle  at  Panniar  on  the  same  date, 
December  29,  1843,  the  Marathas  were  finally  over- 
thrown. The  Governor-General  forced  his  terms  on 
the  state,  the  Maratha  army  was  reduced  in  num- 
bers, and  the  English  contingent  raised  to  a 
disciplined  force  of  10,000  sepoys,  a force  which 
afterwards  caused  considerable  trouble  and  anxiety 
during  the  Mutiny  of  1857. 


XIII. 

LORD  HARDINGE  (1844 — I 848).— THE  SIKHS  AND 
ANNEXATION  OF  THE  PUNJAB. 

Probably  the  most  marvellous  character  in  Indian 
history  is  Ranji't  Singh,  the  Lion  of  Lahore,  who  for 
nearly  fifty  years  held  the  Punjab  in  the  hollow  of 
his  hand. 

In  1836  Baron  Hiigel,  who  was  then  travelling 
in  the  Punjab,  writes  : “ Ranji't  Singh  is  now  54 
years  old.  The  small-pox  deprived  him,  when  a 
child,  of  his  left  eye,  whence  he  gained  the  surname 
of  Kana,  one  eye,  and  his  face  is  scarred  by  the  same 
malady.  His  beard  is  thin  and  grey,  with  a few  dark 
hairs  in  it ; according  to  the  Sikh  religious  custom,  it 
reaches  a little  below  his  chin  and  is  untrimmed.  His 
head  is  square  and  large  for  his  stature,  which,  though 
naturally  short,  is  now  considerably  bowed  by  disease  ; 
his  forehead  is  remarkably  broad.  His  shoulders  are 
wide,  though  his  arms  and  hands  are  quite  shrunk  ; 
he  is  the  most  forbidding  human  being  I have  ever 
seen.  His  large,  brown,  unsteady,  and  suspicious 
eye  seems  driving  into  the  thoughts  of  the  person 
with  whom  he  converses,  and  his  straightforward 

24O 


RAN ji T SINGH. 


24I 


questions  are  put  incessantly  and  in  the  most  laconic 
terms.  His  speech  is  so  much  affected  by  paralysis 
that  it  is  no  easy  matter  to  understand  him.” 

Such  was  Ranji't  Singh,  the  craftiest  if  not  the 
ablest  sovereign  who  ever  founded  an  empire  in  India. 
Drunken,  dissipated,  avaricious,  cruel,  and  debauched, 
he  yet,  in  the  words  of  Sir  Lepel  Griffin,  “ possessed  in 
an  extraordinary  degree  the  qualities  without  which 
the  highest  success  cannot  be  attained.  Men  obeyed 
him  by  instinct  and  because  they  had  no  power  to 
disobey.”  Illiterate,  unable  to  write,  signing  his  orders 
with  the  impress  of  his  hand  dipped  in  saffron,  he 
read  all  men,  noble  or  mean,  as  if  their  thoughts 
were  spread  out  before  him.  Though  he  deemed  that 
his  hospitality  had  not  been  fully  extended  to  Gover- 
nors-General  or  British  envoys  unless  he  reeled  from 
their  presence  intoxicated  with  his  favourite  beverage 
of  “ brandy  prepared  for  him,  in  which  were  the 
strongest  sauces  compounded  from  the  flesh  of  every 
kind  of  animal,  beef  excepted,  pearls  and  jewels,  musk 
opium,”  yet  no  man  found  him  otherwise  than  fasci- 
natingly courteous  and  clever,  able  to  overreach  all 
in  the  subtle  finesse  of  diplomatic  intrigue.  Callous, 
selfish,  cold,  and  false,  outrager  of  all  laws  of  morality 
and  even  decency,  deformed,  paralysed,  with  fiendish 
cynicism  acknowledging  the  children  of  his  many 
wives  as  his  own,  he  was  yet  followed  to  the  funeral 
pyre  by  the  tears  and  lamentations  of  his  subjects. 
Four  of  his  Rani's,  veiled  and  clothed  in  white  silk, 
held  his  hands  ; seven  of  his  fair  and  beauteous  slave 
girls,  some  not  fourteen  years  of  age,  barefooted  and 
calm,  sat  at  his  feet,  while  the  flames  from  the  sandal- 


17 


RANJIT  SINGH. 

(From  “ The  Court  ami  Camp  of  Rnnjcct  Sing,"  by  the 
Hon.  W.  G.  Osborne .) 


RANjlT  SINGH. 


243 


wood  and  aloes  carried  their  souls  and  that  of  their 
lord  to  the  abode  of  the  gods;  even  his  Prime  Minister, 
Raja  Dhyan  Singh,  overcome  for  the  time,  had  to  be 
forcibly  restrained  from  seeking  death  when  the  son 
of  Ranjit  Singh  fired  the  pyre. 

Many  are  the  stories  told  of  Ranjit  Singh,  whose 
greed  and  rapacity  were  the  pivots  on  which  all  his 
actions  turned.  When  Shah  Shuja,  driven  out  from 
Afghanistan,  reached  India,  a hospitable  reception 
was  offered  him  by  Ranjit  Singh,  who  had  learned 
that  the  exile  carried  with  him  the  famed  Koh-i-nur 
diamond,  the  early  history  of  which  fades  away  amid 
legendary  lore  and  idle  fables.  It  was  described  by 
the  Hon.  W.  G.  Osborne,  military  secretary  to  the 
Earl  of  Auckland,  as  “ a jewel  rivalled  if  not  sur- 
passed in  brilliancy  by  the  glance  of  fire  which  every 
now  and  then  shot  from  the  single  eye  of  the  Lion 
of  Lahore.”  It  shone  for  many  years  on  a pillar 
placed  on  the  summit  of  Akbar’s  tomb ; it  was 
worn  by  Shah  Jahan  and  Aurangzfb  ; it  was 
carried  away  from  Delhi  by  Nadir  Shah,  and  became 
the  property  of  Ahmad  Shah  Duran!,  from  whom  it 
descended  to  Shah  Shuja. 

By  threats,  entreaties,  and  promises  Ranjit  Singh 
induced  the  exiled  Afghan  King  to  deliver  to  him 
the  celebrated  jewel,  which  finally,  in  1849,  was 
surrendered  to  the  Queen  of  England.  Nothing 
once  desired  by  Ranjit  Singh  was  allowed  to  re- 
main unacquired.  He  expended  60  lakhs  of  rupees 
and  the  lives  of  twelve  thousand  men  before  he 
finally  wrested  from  the  Governor  of  Peshawar  the 
second  wonder  of  the  East,  the  wondrous  mare  Laili, 


244 


LORD  HARDINGE. 


a treasure  which  few  could  ever  induce  him  to 
exhibit,  perhaps,  because  (and  this  has  always  been 
a disputed  point)  he  never  obtained  the  famed  mare, 
some  other  less  valuable  horse  having  been  sub- 
stituted to  deceive  the  avaricious  monarch. 

Ranjit  Singh,  at  the  age  of  twelve,  came  into 
possession  of  the  lands  of  his  forefathers,  and  head- 
ship of  the  Sukarchakia  Confederacy.  Following 
the  time-honoured  custom  of  his  race,  he  murdered 
with  his  own  hands  his  mother  and  her  lover.  By 
the  time  he  was  twenty  years  of  age  he  had  extended 
his  influence  over  the  neighbouring  districts.  He 
was  then  welcomed  as  Governor  of  Lahore  by  the 
inhabitants,  who  were  glad  to  escape  from  the  lust 
of  their  three  profligate  rulers  who  had  devastated 
the  city,  unroofed  the  houses,  and  driven  forth  half 
the  citizens  to  seek  shelter  elsewhere,  from  plunder 
or  worse.  By  degrees  he  brought  beneath  his  sway 
all  the  varied  chieftains,  who,  originally  cultivators, 
had  after  the  raids  of  Ahmad  Shah  Duranf  and  the 
Afghans,  risen  to  power  by  gathering  round  them 
bands  of  fighting  men  to  conquer  and  annex  the 
territories  which  they  held,  until  compelled  to  ac- 
knowledge the  supremacy  of  the  new  ruler  of 
Lahore.  As  Ranjit  Singh  looked  round  he  saw 
that  if  he  desired  to  hold  the  Punjab  independent 
of  Afghanistan  and  the  English  possessions,  he 
must  organise  and  discipline  an  army  capable  of 
united  action  against  all  invaders.  Up  to  the 
time  of  Ranjit  Singh,  local  chieftains  had  enrolled 
under  their  banners  bands  of  Sikh  fighting  men, 
each  horseman  clad  in  coat  of  mail,  gold  inlaid 


THE  SIKHS. 


245 


helmet,  and  heron’s  plume,  or  gay-coloured  flowing 
silk  raiment,  and  armed  with  spear,  matchlock, 
sword,  and  round  shield  of  buffalo  hide  slung  across 
his  back.  These  bands  considered  themselves  free 
to  come  and  go,  serve  or  desert,  as  the  chances  of 
reward  or  plunder  became  more  or  less  certain. 
They  formed  a brotherhood,  in  which  all  were  equal 
and  united  in  a common,  fierce,  religious  fanaticism — 
the  Sikh  faith.  The  Sikhs  numbered  in  the  time  of 
Ranjit  Singh,  probably  what  they  were  found  to  be  at 
the  last  Census  of  1891,  not  two  millions,  while  the 
Muhammadans  and  Hindus  of  the  Punjab  exceeded 
twenty-two  millions.  The  word  Sikh  merely  means 
disciple — a disciple  of  a religious  teacher,  or  guru,  whose 
duty  it  is  to  teach  and  expound  the  Adi  Granth  or 
sacred  Bible  of  their  religion,  a book  held  to  be  a 
revelation  from  God.  Nanak,  son  of  a shopkeeper  of 
Talwande,  near  Lahore,  was  the  first  guru,  or  teacher, 
of  the  Sikhs.  Born  in  1469,  he  died  at  the  age  of 
seventy-one,  leaving  behind  him  the  Adi  Granth,  a 
book  still  daily  worshipped,  still  preserved  with  more 
than  superstitious  awe  in  the  Golden  Temple  of 
Amritsar,  the  sacred  shrine  of  Hari  in  the  Pool  of 
Immortality.  Through  the  Adi  Granth  runs  the 
faint  sound  of  a message  proclaimed,  afterwards  in 
clarion  notes,  by  a poet  and  prophet  of  New  England. 
In  India  the  message  was  no  new  one  ; it  had  been 
proclaimed  over  and  over  again,  Nanak  gave  it  but 
a new  and  local  significance,  teaching  it  to  Hindus 
and  Muhammadans  alike — to  the  Hindus,  rank 
idolaters,  to  the  Muhammadans,  believers  in  one 
God  and  Muhammad  the  Prophet  of  that  God. 


246 


LORD  HARDINGE. 


The  new  teacher  did  not  claim  for  himself  any 
Divine  attributes,  nor  did  he  assert  that  he  had 
received  any  special  revelation.  Influenced  by  the 
prevailing  Muhammadanism  of  the  Punjab,  he  de- 
nounced idolatry,  and  social  distinction  founded  on 
caste  laws.  Influenced  by  the  Pantheistic  teaching 
of  purer  Hinduism,  he  taught  an  universal  brother- 
hood, based  on  the  belief  that  all  life  is  but  an 
emanation  from  a Divine  Creator  known  under 
various  names,  as  Supreme  Being,  God,  Brahma, 
Govinda,  or  Hari  the  appellation  chosen  by  the 
Sikhs.  The  idea  that  the  human  soul,  or  that  the 
phenomenal  world  could  exist  as  separate  from  the 
Eternal  Cause  from  which  it  is  evolved,  was  held 
to  be  a delusive  fancy,  ever  leading  men  astray. 
The  soul  of  man  was  liable  to  transmigration 
through  a continued  series  of  births  in  bodily  forms 
until,  by  an  accumulation  of  virtuous  deeds  done 
during  life,  the  result  of  all  past  transgressions  was 
washed  away,  and  no  further  rebirth  was  necessary. 
The  gurus,  or  Sikh  teachers,  also  claim  the  power 
to  grant  exemption  from  these  continual  transmigra- 
tions. 

Nanak  was  followed  by  a series  of  teachers,  until 
finally,  the  tenth,  and  last  Guru,  Govind  Singh, 
appeared.  His  father,  Tej  Bahadur,  the  ninth  Guru, 
had  been  cruelly  tortured  and  put  to  death  by  the 
fanatic  Mughal  Emperor  Aurangzib.  To  avenge  his 
death  and  protect  the  followers  of  the  Sikh  faith 
from  persecution,  Govind  Singh  determined  to  unite 
the  disciples  together  into  a brotherhood  of  soldiers. 
Every  Sikh  soldier  on  initiation  was  baptised  with. 


THE  KHALSA. 


247 


a mixture  of  water  and  refined  sugar,  stirred  by  a two- 
edged  dagger,  after  which  he  became  a member  of  the 
Khalsa,  or  Army  of  the  Guru,  and  to  his  name  the 
title  Singh  or  Lion  was  affixed.  He  had  to  give  up 
the  use  of  tobacco,  vow  to  carry  a sword  and  dagger, 
not  to  cut  his  hair  or  beard,  to  abandon  the  Indian 
loin-cloth  and  wear  short  drawers  reaching  to  the  knees, 
to  renounce  the  custom  of  female  infanticide,  then 
universal  in  the  Punjab,  and  to  free  himself  from 
the  laws  of  caste.  Guru  Govind  Singh  having  banded 
these  disciples  together  into  an  army  breathing  fanatic 
hatred  of  all  Muhammadans  and  oppression,  it  be- 
came the  dream  of  Ranjit  Singh’s  life  to  make  that 
army  invincible.  In  1839  the  Khalsa  consisted  of 
29,168  men  with  192  guns,  officered,  drilled,  and 
disciplined  after  the  manner  of  European  troops. 
To  his  aid  he  summoned  officers  of  acknowledged 
ability  from  many  lands,  the  most  noted  being 
Generals  Ventura  and  Allard,  who  had  served  under 
Napoleon,  Colonel  Court  a Frenchman,  Colonel 
Gardner  an  Irishman,  and  General  Avitabile  a 
Neapolitan,  a name  still  remembered  in  terror  by 
the  wild  robber  tribes,  whose  raids  he  punished 
with  relentless  severity ; certain  frontier  villages 
having  been  granted  to  him  rent  free  on  condition 
that  he  annually  delivered  fifty  Afridi  heads  to  the 
Lion  of  Lahore. 

Ranji't  Singh  wisely  resolved  to  live  in  peace  with 
the  Company,  being  far-seeing  enough  to  know  that 
the  Khalsa  could  not  prevail  against  its  forces. 
Even  in  1809,  when  the  Governor-General,  Lord 
Minto,  decided  to  take  the  Cis-Sutlej  chieftains 


24S 


LORD  HARD1NGE. 


under  English  protection,  Ranjft  Singh  bowed  his 
head  and  strove  no  longer  to  extend  his  supremacy 
beyond  the  Sutlej.  Until  his  death  in  1839  he 
remained  the  friend  and  faithful  ally  of  the 
British  Government. 

Baron  Htigel  gives  a strange  account  of  a con- 
versation he  held  with  Ranji't  Singh  respecting  the 
rival  forces.  “ ‘ You  have  seen  divisions  of  all  ray 
troops,’  observed  Ranjft  Singh  to  me,  ‘tell  me  what 
you  think  of  them.’  I answered  that  what  I had  seen 
exceeded  anything  that  I could  have  anticipated. 
He  still  pressed  for  a more  definite  answer,  and  I 
continued,  ‘ The  world  knows  what  these  troops  have 
done  for  you.  The  answer  to  your  question  has 
been  given  by  your  cannon  from  Ladak  to  Multan, 
from  the  Sutlej  to  the  heart  of  Afghanistan.’  ‘You 
evade  my  question,’  said  Ranji't  Singh.  I answered 
that  he  was  a much  better  judge  of  soldiers  than  I. 

‘ Tell  me,’  he  persisted,  ‘ what  you  think  of  my  troops 
compared  with  those  of  the  East  India  Company?’ 
‘You  require  me  to  do  so?’  ‘Yes,’  he  said.  My 
attendant  had  on  an  imitation  Kashmir  shawl  of 
mine,  while  one  of  his  suite  wore  a genuine  and 
very  beautiful  one.  I showed  him  both,  saying, 

1 This  is  genuine,  the  other  is  imitation — which  of  the 
two  is  the  best?’  He  looked  at  me,  and  said,  after 
a short  pause,  ‘ You  have  expressed  my  own  opinion, 
but  do  you  believe  that  a battalion  of  my  army  could 
engage  with  one  of  the  Company’s  battalions?’  ‘My 
answer  is  already  given  in  my  last  question — I do 
not.’  ” 

On  the  death  of  Ranji't  Singh,  the  master  hand 


THE  KHALSA. 


249 


that  had  held  in  check  the  surging  forces  of 
fanaticism,  ever  latent  in  the  Khalsa,  was  withdrawn. 
At  Lahore  the  usual  struggle  for  supremacy  took 
place.  Legitimate  descendants  of  the  Lion  of  Lahore 
were  assassinated,  leaving  impostors  and  soldiers 
of  fortune  to  fight  amongst  themselves.  At  length 
Jindan,  a favourite  wife  of  Ranjit  Singh,  succeeded 
in  having  her  son  Dhuh'p  Singh,  an  infant  of  five  years 
of  age,  proclaimed  Maharajd,  while  the  real  power 
remained  in  the  hands  of  her  brother,  Jowahir  Singh, 
and  her  lover,  a good-looking  Brahman.  The  arm)- 
daily  gained  power,  dismissed  their  foreign  officers, 
Avitabile  and  Court,  and  nominated  as  their  repre- 
sentatives a Council  of  five  delegates. 

This  army,  under  Tej  Singh  its  Commander-in-Chief, 
had  grown  during  the  six  years  succeeding  the  death 
of  Ranjit  Singh,  so  that  it  numbered  over  70,000  in 
1845,  more  than  double  what  it  was  in  1839.  To  keep 
this  vast  army  in  pay  and  to  prevent  it  growing 
mutinous,  it  had  been  despatched  to  attack  Gulab 
Singh  at  Jammu  and  also  against  the  Governor  of 
Multan.  Everything  warned  the  Governor-General 
to  be  prepared,  for  to  all  it  was  evident  that  the  time 
must  soon  come  when  the  Khalsa  in  its  folly  would 
encroach  on  English  territory.  Avitabile  and  Court, 
foreseeing  danger,  fled,  and  took  refuge  in  the 
Company’s  dominions.  Sir  Henry  Hardinge  moved 
up  troops  to  the  frontier- — a course  objected  to  by 
the  Khalsa,  an  objection  carefully  fomented  by  the 
regency  at  Lahore,  who  saw  their  safety  best  secured 
by  diverting  the  attention  of  its  army  from  the  capital. 
In  November,  1845,  the  Khalsa  numbering  60,000 


250 


LORD  HARD1NGE. 


soldiers,  with  40,000  camp-followers  and  1 50  guns 
crossed  the  Sutlej  and  advanced  to  Firozshah,  where 
they  entrenched  themselves  under  Lai  Singh,  sending 
forward  a division  to  Mudki  to  attack  the  advancing 
British  troops.  An  obstinate  fight  ensued  on  the 
19th  of  December,  the  Sikh  and  British  infantry 
being  about  equal  in  number,  the  Sikh  cavalry 
however,  exceeded  ours  fully  twenty  times.  The 
English  captured  seventeen  guns,  but  lost  nine 
hundred  men  killed  and  wounded,  including  Major- 
General  Sir  Robert  Sale,  the  defender  of  Jaldlabad. 

On  December  21st  the  Governor-General  and  Sir 
Hugh  Gough  advanced  against  the  main  army, 
entrenched  at  Firozshdh,  about  ten  miles  from  Mudki 
where  Sir  J.  Littler  joined  Sir  Hugh  Gough  with  over 
5,000  men  and  24  guns,  thus  increasing  the  British 
force  to  16,700  men  and  68  guns.  The  Governor- 
General  volunteered  as  second  in  command. 

The  Khalsa,  numbering  from  30,000  to  70,000  men. 
remained  behind  their  entrenchments,  which  extended 
a mile  long  and  half  a mile  broad,  with  the  village  of 
Firozshah  in  their  centre.  Never  before  in  the  annals 
of  Indian  history  was  there  fought  a battle  so  momen- 
tous and  critical,  and  never  before  was  the  dogged 
perseverance  of  British  soldiers  and  fierce  valour  of 
Sikh  infantry  so  conspicuously  displayed.  The 
British  army  was  in  position  by  3 p.m.,  and  as  the 
advance  took  place  the  Sikh  artillery  opened  fire  at  a 
distance  of  three  hundred  yards.  The  Governor- 
General  in  a letter  gives  the  details  of  the  opening  of 
the  conflict  in  the  following  words  : “ The  batteries 
were  carried  by  our  brave  British  Infantry.  Sir  John 


THE  FOUR  BATTLES. 


Littler  told  me  H.M.’s  62nd  gave  way  when  almost  in 
the  battery,  but  what  is  the  fact  ? One  hundred  and 
eighty-five  men  were  killed  and  wounded  in  ten  minutes 
by  grape  and  canister,  and  can  he  or  any  other  officer 
be  surprised  that  boys,  who  never  before  heard  a ball 
whistle  should  turn  back  ?”  All  day  long  the  stubborn 
fight  continued,  and  when  night  fell  there  came  no 
peace  to  the  weary,  cold,  and  thirsty  soldiers.  The 
Governor-General,  in  a letter  to  Sir  Robert  Peel, 
describes  the  weird  scene  which  the  battle-field  dis- 
closed. “ A burning  camp  in  our  front,  our  brave 
fellows  lying  down  under  a heavy  cannonade,  which 
continued  during  the  whole  of  the  night,  mixed  with 
the  wild  cries  of  the  Sikhs,  our  English  hurrah,  the 
tramp  of  men,  and  the  groans  of  the  dying.”  In  the 
English  camp  there  was  talk  of  retreat ; amid  the 
Sikhs  there  were  rumours  of  treachery,  for  some  of 
their  horsemen  were  riding  hard  for  the  Sutlej,  and 
the  treasury  had  been  plundered.  In  the  grey  morning 
the  British  soldiers,  without  food  or  water,  their  fingers 
numbed  with  cold,  seized  their  muskets,  and  again  the 
long,  stubborn  fight  commenced.  The  Sikhs  were  at 
length  driven  from  their  position  with  the  loss  of 
103  pieces  of  cannon,  but  the  British  force  lost 
2,415  killed  and  wounded,  including  103  officers. 
The  wearied  troops  with  their  ammunition  expended 
would  have  been  glad  to  rest  with  the  field  dearly 
won,  but  the  cavalry  outposts  galloped  up  and 
announced  the  advance  of  Tej  Singh  from  Firozpur, 
with  a fresh  Sikh  army  of  some  twenty  thousand 
infantry,  five  thousand  cavalry,  and  seventy  guns. 
Between  the  retreating  Sikhs  and  the  British  army 


252 


LORD  HARDINGS.. 


Tej  Singh  drew  up  his  troops,  and  his  artillery  opened 
fire,  which  the  English  guns  without  ammunition  were 
unable  to  answer.  Gallantly  the  exhausted  British 
cavalry — the  3rd  Dragoons — charged  into  the  midst 
of  the  Sikhs,  and  their  very  weight  drove  before  them 
the  lighter  horsemen.  Tej  Singh  at  once  abandoned 
the  field,  left  behind  him  seventy-three  guns,  and 
followed  the  main  force  towards  the  Sutlej.  Whether 
Tej  Singh  retreated  from  prudence,  cowardice,  or 
treachery,  is  unknown  ; the  fierce  fight  was  over,  and 
once  again  the  Company  had  triumphed,  having 
defeated  the  boldest  and  bravest  troops  that  had  yet 
faced  it  in  the  East. 

The  Sikh  army,  under  Tej  Singh,  retreated  to  a 
strong  position  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Sutlej,  below 
its  junction  with  the  Beas,  and  there,  skilfully  en- 
trenched, constructed  a pontoon  bridge  across  the 
river  to  secure  retreat. 

In  the  meantime  Sir  Harry  Smith  had  driven  a 
formidable  body  of  the  Khalsa  from  Aliwal  across  the 
Sutlej,  and  inflicted  on  them  another  terrible  loss. 
The  1 6th  Lancers,  followed  by  the  3rd  Light  Native 
Cavalry,  charged  through  the  Sikh  square  of  infantry, 
and  the  discomfited  foe  fled.  They  left  their  guns  and 
stores  on  the  field  of  battle,  and  in  their  endeavours  to 
cross  the  river  numbers  were  drowned  or  else  slain 
by  the  artillery  which  opened  fire  on  them  from  the 
banks. 

Sir  Harry  Smith,  proud  of  his  victory,  which  in  his 
report  he  described  as  “ one  of  the  most  glorious 
victories  ever  achieved  in  India  by  the  united  effort 
of  Her  Majesty’s  and  the  Honourable  Company’s 


THE  FOUR  BATTLES.  253 

troops,”  joined  the  Commander-in-Chief,  and  the  united 
forces  closed  round  the  formidable  Sikh  entrench- 
ments at  Sobraon,  where  thirty  thousand  of  the 
best  fighting  men  of  the  Khalsa,  supported  by 
seventy  heavy  cannons,  awaited  the  attack. 

On  the  morning  of  the  ioth  of  February,  1846,  the 
Bengal  Home  Artillery  galloped  forward  to  within 
three  hundred  yards  of  the  Sikh  entrenchments 
which  swept  in  a semicircle  round  a bend  in  the 
river  Sutlej.  The  infantry  followed,  and  soon  the 
conflict  raged,  centre,  right,  and  left.  No  Sikh  gave 
or  sought  quarter ; fiercely  the  British  troops  were 
driven  back  from  their  batteries,  the  1st  European 
Regiment  alone  losing  197  men  out  of  their  reduced 
strength  of  400,  twelve  of  their  officers  being  killed 
or  disabled.  It  was  not,  as  Sir  Hugh  Gough  in  his 
despatch  writes,  “ until  the  Cavalry  of  the  left,  under 
Major-General  Sir  Joseph  Thackwell,  had  moved 
forward  and  ridden  through  the  openings  in  the 
entrenchments  made  by  our  sappers,  in  single  file, 
and  reformed  as  they  passed  them,  and  the  3rd 
Dragoons,  whom  no  obstacle  usually  held  formidable 
by  horse,  appears  to  check,  had  on  this  day,  as  at 
Firozshah,  galloped  over  and  cut  down  the  obstinate 
defenders  of  batteries  and  field  works,  and  until  the 
full  weight  of  three  divisions  of  Infantry,  with  every 
field  artillery  gun  which  could  be  sent  to  their  aid, 
had  been  cast  into  the  scale,  that  victory  finally 
declared  for  the  British.  The  fire  of  the  Sikhs  first 
slackened,  and  then  nearly  ceased,  and  the  victors 
then  pressing  them  on  every  side,  precipitated  them 
in  masses  over  their  bridge  and  into  the  Sutlej,  which 


254 


LORD  HARD/NCE. 


a sudden  rise  of  17  inches  had  rendered  hardly 
fordable.  In  their  efforts  to  reach  the  right  bank 
through  the  deepened  water  they  suffered  from  our 
horse  artillery  a terrible  carnage.  Hundreds  fell- 
under  this  cannonade,  hundreds  upon  hundreds  were 
drowned  in  attempting  the  perilous  passage.  Their 
awful  slaughter,  confusion  and  dismay,  were  such  as 
would  have  excited  compassion  in  the  hearts  of  their 
conquerors,  if  the  Khalsa  troops  had  not,  in  the 
earlier  part  of  the  action,  sullied  their  gallantry  by 
slaughtering  and  barbarously  mangling  every  wounded 
soldier,  whom,  in  the  vicissitudes  of  attack,  the  fortune 
of  war  left  at  their  mercy.” 

The  four  great  Sikh  battles,  Mudki,  Firozshah, 
Aliwal  and  Sobraon,  were  over.  On  the  18th  of 
February  the  Governor-General  was  met  by  the  Maha- 
rdjd  Dhulip  Singh,  a child  of  eight  years,  and  Guldb 
Singh,  the  Minister,  and  at  Lahore,  in  full  darbar  a 
treaty  of  peace  was  signed.  By  this  the  Sikh  army 
was  reduced  to  twenty-four  thousand  men  and  fifty 
guns,  the  territories  between  the  Beas  and  the  Sutlej 
were  ceded  to  the  English,  and  1^  millions  sterling 
demanded  as  indemnity  for  the  expenses  of  the  war  ; 
lands  including  Kashmir  being  made  over  to  Gulab 
Singh  on  payment  of  ^750,000.  The  Koh-i-nur 
diamond  was  produced  from  a tin  box  delivered  over 
to  John  Lawrence — who  for  a time  lost  it — for 
transmission  to  the  Queen  of  England.  A British 
force  of  nine  thousand  men  with  a Resident,  Major 
Henry  Lawrence,  of  the  Bengal  Artillery,  was  to  remain 
at  Lahore  for  a year,  a period  afterwards  extended,  to 
support  the  authority  of  the  Maharaja  Dhulip  Singh  : 


VANS  AGNEW  AND  ANDERSON. 


255 


Lai  Singh  was  appointed  Prime  Minister,  and  Tej 
Singh  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  reduced  Sikh  force. 

Raja  Lai  Singh,  the  Queen-Mother’s  lover,  did  not 
long  hold  his  power ; found  guilty  of  conspiring  to 
prevent  the  delivery  of  Kashmir  to  the  new  Governor, 
Gulab  Singh,  he  was  banished  from  the  Punjab,  not- 
withstanding the  entreaties  and  tears  of  the  Queen- 
Mother.  As  the  result,  the  English  troops  were 
retained  in  the  Punjab  for  eight  years,  and  a Council 
of  Regency  with  Henry  Lawrence  as  Resident,  was 
appointed  to  act  during  the  minority  of  the  infant 
Maharaja. 

The  Land  of  the  Five  Rivers  was  at  length  at  rest, 
and  when  Lord  Hardinge  left  for  England  in  1848, 
and  Lord  Dalhousie  succeeded  it  was  confidently 
hoped  that  a long  period  of  peace  was  in  store  for  the 
Company. 

Lord  Dalhousie,  however,  had  not  been  six  months 
in  the  country  before  the  news  came  that  a second 
Sikh  war  was  close  at  hand.  Mulraj,  the  Sikh 
Governor  of  the  important  city  of  Multan,  in  the 
middle  valley  of  the  Indus,  had  offered  to  resign 
sooner  than  give  an  account  of  his  stewardship  to  Sir 
Frederick  Currie,  Resident  at  Lahore  during  the 
absence  of  Henry  Lawrence.  Mr.  Vans  Agnew  of 
the  Civil  Service,  and  Lieutenant  Anderson,  assistants 
to  the  Resident,  were  despatched  to  receive  the 
resignation  of  Mulraj  and  to  take  charge  of  the 
city  fortress.  All  went  well,  until  suddenly,  as  the 
two  officers  were  riding  through  the  city  gates,  they 
were  attacked,  severely  wounded,  and  only  saved  from 
death  by  being  borne  away  by  their  slender  escort  to 


256 


LORD  HARD1NGE. 


a Muhammadan  mosque,  unfortunately  commanded  by 
the  guns  of  the  fort  which  now  opened  fire  on  the 
defenceless  Englishmen.  A fanatical  crowd  pressed 
near,  the  mosque  was  entered  where  Lieutenant 
Anderson  lay  on  a cot  unable  to  move,  his  hand  held 
by  Vans  Agnew,  himself  sorely  wounded. 

Calmly  they  met  their  fate,  “ foretelling  the  day 
when  thousands  of  Englishmen  should  come  to 
avenge  their  death  and  destroy  Mulraj,  his  army, 
and  fortress.” 

The  news  was  carried  to  the  nearest  English 
officer,  Lieutenant  Herbert  Edwardes,  then  engaged 
in  pacifying  the  Bannu  district.  Gathering  together 
some  hastily  raised  Pathans,  he  marched  against 
Mulraj,  whom  he  drove  back  into  the  fortress  of  Multan. 
In  vain  Herbert  Edwardes  appealedtothe  Commander- 
in-Chief  for  aid,  for  guns,  and  a mortar  battery  with 
which  he  might  lay  low  the  fortress.  Lord  Gough 
refused  to  move  troops  so  far  during  the  hot  weather, 
and  Edwardes  was  left  alone  to  bay  at  Mulrdj  during 
the  long  summer  months  of  1848.  The  revolt  spread 
far  and  wide  ; the  Khalsa  once  more  panted  to  meet 
the  English  troops,  and  down  through  the  Khaibar 
Pass  swarmed  the  Afghans,  for  once  having  forgotten 
their  religious  feud  in  their  longing  to  unite  with  the 
Sikhs,  and  drive  their  common  foe  from  the  Punjab 
and  regain  possession  of  Peshawar. 

The  Queen-Mother,  detected  in  her  intrigues 
against  the  English,  was  sent  from  Lahore  to 
Benares.  Lord  Gough  now  found  that  instead  of 
a revolt  at  M'ultan  he  had  the  whole  army  of  the 
Khalsa  to  deal  with.  From  Sind,  Bombay,  and 


LORD  GOUGH. 


25  7 


Firozpur,  troops  were  hurried  towards  the  Punjab, 
Lord  Dalhousie  publicly  declaring  on  October  5, 
1848,  that  if  the  Sikhs  want  war  “they  shall  have 
it  with  a vengeance.’’ 

It  was  not  until  January,  1849,  that  Multan  fell 
before  the  continued  assaults  of  seventeen  thousand 
troops  under  General  Whish,  after  forty  thousand 
shell  and  shot  had  poured  into  it  from  seventy  heavy 
cannon. 

For  Lord  Gough  the  campaign  opened  disastrously: 
in  an  ill-advised  and  precipitate  attack  on  the 
enemy’s  position  at  Ramnagar  he  lost  one  of  his 
guns  and  some  of  his  best  officers,  including  Colonels 
Havelock  and  Cureton.  Angry  at  his  reverse,  Lord 
Gough  did  not  wait  for  the  troops  from  Multan  to 
join  him,  but  determined  to  force  an  action  on  the 
Sikhs  who  now  occupied  a strong  position  at  Chilian- 
wala,  its  front  covered  with  thick  jungle  interspersed 
with  ponds  and  swamps  through  which  it  was  im- 
possible for  either  infantry  or  cavalry  to  advance  in 
order.  Lord  Gough  commenced  the  battle  with  his 
usual  tactics.  The  infantry  were  ordered  to  advance 
and  capture  the  enemy’s  guns  at  the  point  of  the 
bayonet.  In  its  efforts  to  gain  the  Sikh  guns,  the  24th 
Foot  lost  its  colours,  23  officers,  and  459  men.  Gilbert’s 
division  was  outflanked  by  the  enemy,  while  the 
3rd  Dragoons,  who  had  ridden  forward  at  a trot, 
wheeled  round  in  obedience  to  a mistaken  order,  and 
retired  before  the  Sikh  horse  which  rode  through 
the  artillery  and  captured  four  guns.  Darkness  put 
an  end  to  the  terrible  day  of  disaster,  and  though  the 
Sikhs  were  forced  back,  the  Commander-in-Chief 

18 


LORD  HARDINGE. 


258 

lost  89  of  his  officers,  and  2,337  men  were  left  on 
the  field  of  battle  wounded  or  dead.  When  the  news 
reached  home,  Lord  Gough  was  recalled,  and  Sir 
Charles  Napier  hurriedly  despatched  to  succeed  him 
as  Commander-in-Chief. 

It  was  not  until  eight  days  after  the  battle  of  Chilian- 
wala,  that  Multan  was  captured,  and  General  Whish 
released  to  join  Lord  Gough  with  over  9,000  of  his  men. 
On  the  20th  of  February  the  armies  faced  each  other 
for  the  last  time  in  Indian  history.  The  Sikhs,  to 
the  number  of  some  50,000,  were  strongly  posted 
in  front  of  the  fortified  town  of  Giijrat  with  sixty 
cannon.  The  English,  about  20,000  faced  them. 
For  two  hours  and  a half  the  ninety  English  guns 
played  incessantly  on  the  Sikh  artillery,  and  not 
until  it  was  silenced  did  the  infantry  and  cavalry 
advance,  and  drive  before  them  the  Khalsa,  which  fled 
in  dismay,  having  left  behind  fifty-three  guns,  its 
standards,  ammunition,  tents,  and  stores.  General 
Gilbert,  with  a light  force  of  12,000  horse  and  foot, 
chased  the  retreating  foe  across  the  Punjab,  and  on 
March  12,  1849,  the  last  cannon  was  surrendered 
at  Rawal  Pindi,  where  the  remaining  Sikh  soldiers 
came  forward  and  delivered  up  their  arms. 

The  Punjab,  over  one  and  a half  times  the  area 
of  England  and  Wales,  was  at  the  mercy  of  Lord 
Dalhousie,  and  he  determined  to  annex  it.  The 
Maharaja  Dhulip  Singh,  who  died  an  exile  in  1893, 
was  allowed  a pension  of  £ 1 2,000  a year,  increased  to 
one  of  .£15,000  in  1856,  and  to  ,£25,000  in  1862.  A 
Board,  consisting  of  Henry  Lawrence,  John  Lawrence, 
and  Charles  Greville  Mansel,  was  formed  for  the 


BOARDS  RARELY  HAVE  ANY  TALENT: 


259 


administration  of  the  new  provinces — a system  of 
government  which  drew  from  Sir  Charles  Napier 
the  criticism,  “ Boards  rarely  have  any  talent,”  with 
the  caustic  remark  that  the  Punjab  Board  formed  no 
exception  to  the  general  rule.  The  Board  was  finally 
dissolved  in  1852,  and  John  Lawrence  left  as  Chief 
Commissioner  to  loyally  serve  under  the  iron  rule  of 
Lord  Dalhousie,  by  whom  the  Sikh  army  was  dis- 
solved, the  great  chieftains  shorn  of  their  power  and 
authority,  the  people  disarmed  and  enabled,  under  a 
lenient  revenue  system  and  freedom  from  an  oppres- 
sive taxation,  to  settle  down  to  a peaceable  life,  free 
from  all  danger  of  revolution  or  external  violence, 
so  that  when  the  Mutiny  burst  over  the  north  of 
India,  the  Punjab  stood  firm  and  its  soldiers  rode 
forth  to  fight  loyally  and  willingly  for  their  foreign 
rulers. 


XIV. 

THE  MUTINY. 

The  last  great  wave  of  conquest  after  having  over- 
lapped, in  its  onward  course,  the  mountain  barriers  of 
Afghanistan,  receded  to  leave  the  limits  of  British 
rule  firmly  established  over  the  Land  of  the  Five 
Rivers. 

The  first  great  wave  on  which  Clive  rose  supreme 
had  swept  in  gradually  from  the  sea,  slowly  crept 
along  the  littoral  tracts  down  on  the  rich  alluvial 
plains  of  Bengal,  on  towards  Lucknow,  whence  it 
retreated  but  to  gain  strength  for  its  second  advance 
not  fifty  years  later,  in  the  days  of  the  Marquess 
Wellesley.  Pausing  for  a moment  in  its  new-grown 
power,  it  then  suddenly  burst  forth  far  and  wide, 
overwhelmed  the  hosts  of  Haidar  AH  and  Tipu 
Sultan,  dashed  from  before  its  path  the  fierce 
Maratha  foemen,  enfolded  within  its  embraces  the 
royal  cities  of  Agra  and  Delhi,  and  bore  away  amid 
its  seething  waters  the  feeble  Mughal  Emperor  and 
the  proud  Peshwa  of  Poona. 

The  third  great  wave  of  conquest,  in  the  days  of 

Lord  Dalhousie,  spread  over  one-third  more  of  India. 

260 


SF.AT  OF  MUTINY. 

(From  “Illustrated  London  News,  1857  ”' 


2 62 


T HE  MUTINY. 


The  Punjab  was  conquered  and  annexed,  and  the 
overweening  insolence  of  the  Burmese  humbled, 
Tenasserim,  Arakan,  and  Assam  seized,  thus  leaving 
open  the  road  up  the  river  to  Ava. 

The  many  other  annexations  of  Lord  Dalhousie 
were  the  result  of  local  and  political  causes,  each  of 
which  must  form  its  own  justification  for  the  course 
pursued.  The  keynote  to  the  policy  had  been  struck 
in  1803,  when  the  Raja  of  Coorg  was  deposed  and 
pensioned  by  Lord  William  Bentinck  on  account  of 
fiendish  cruelty  and  misgovernment,  his  state  in 
Mysore  annexed,  its  inhabitants  placed  under  British 
protection,  and  assured  that  never  more  would  they 
have  a native  ruler  placed  over  them.  In  Lord 
Dalhousie’s  time  it  became  inevitable  that  Oudh,  the 
richest  garden  of  India,  should  be  similarly  dealt 
with. 

Clive,  on  acquiring  the  Diwani  of  Bengal,  Behar, 
and  Orissa,  had  been  content  to  enter  into  an  alliance 
and  treaty  of  friendship  with  the  rulers  of  Oudh,  to 
whom  the  advice  of  the  Company  was  administered 
through  a Resident  stationed  at  Lucknow,  the  capital. 

The  administration  was  carried  on  by  the  Nawab 
Wazi'r’s  own  native  officers,  but  the  Company  was 
virtually  responsible  for  holding  the  state  secure 
from  invasion  and  free  from  internal  revolution.  It 
was  impossible  that  such  a system  could  work  for 
long  without  showing  its  inherent  weakness.  The 
Nawab  Wazi'r,  or,  as  he  was  afterwards  styled,  the 
King  of  Oudh,  freed  from  all  restraint  and  responsi- 
bility, and  relieved  from  danger  of  revolt  on  the  part 
of  his  subjects,  gradually  sank  into  depraved  de- 


ANNEXATION  OF  OUDH.  2 63 

bauchery.  With  listless  indifference  he  viewed  the 
misrule  which  spread  over  the  country,  where  the 
strong  and  callous  rose  to  power,  the  weak  and 
helpless  became  slaves  to  the  greed  and  lust  of  tax- 
collectors  and  local  magnates,  and  those  alone  re- 
mained secure  from  the  barbarities  of  marauding 
bands  and  exactions  of  their  rulers  who  entrenched 
themselves  behind  the  mud  walls  of  their  villages. 

Lord  Wellesley  declared  in  1801  that  nothing 
could  save  the  dominions  of  Oudh  from  utter  ruin 
save  the  control  of  the  entire  civil  and  military 
authority  by  the  Company.  In  1831  Lord  William 
Bentinck  threatened  to  depose  the  King  unless  the 
affairs  of  the  State  were  amended.  In  1837  Lord 
Auckland  drew  the  attention  of  the  King  to  the 
wilful  oppression,  anarchy,  and  insecurity  which  pre- 
vailed in  his  dominions,  and  declared  his  intention 
of  assuming  the  management  of  the  country  if  the 
misrule  did  not  cease — a proceeding  which,  if  carried 
out,  might  have  obviated  the  necessity  of  annexation. 

The  disapproval  by  the  Court  of  Directors  of  this 
policy,  though  communicated  to  Lord  Auckland,  was, 
however,  not  conveyed  to  the  King  by  the  Governor- 
General.  In  1847  Cord  Hardinge,  in  soldier-like 
language,  informed  the  King  that  if  within  two  years 
the  administration  was  not  reformed,  the  duty  of  the 
British  would  be  to  assume  the  government  itself. 

Colonel  Sleeman  was  despatched  to  make  a pro- 
longed journey  through  Oudh,  and  reported,  in  1851, 
that  “ great  crimes  stain  almost  every  acre  of  land  in 
his  dominions,  neither  age  nor  sex  nor  condition  are 
spared.”  He  further  reported  that  “ the  soil  is  good 


264 


THE  MUTINY. 


and  the  surface  everywhere  capable  of  tillage,  with 
little  labour  or  outlay  ” ; and  “ that  five  years  of  good 
government  would  make  it  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
parterres  in  nature.”  In  his  opinion  “ the  only  alter- 
native left  appears  to  be  for  the  paramount  power  to 
take  upon  itself  the  administration  ” ; and  if  this  were 
done  “at  least  nine-tenths  of  the  people  of  Oudh 
would  hail  the  change  as  a great  blessing.”  In  1854 
Colonel  Outram  made  a full  report  on  the  anarchy 
that  prevailed,  the  vile  life  of  the  King,  and  the  misery 
of  the  unprotected  cultivators,  seventy-eight  of  whose 
villages  were  on  an  average  yearly  burned  and 
plundered,  the  inhabitants  tortured,  slain,  or  sold  into 
slavery.  His  opinion  was  that  “ in  upholding  the 
sovereign  power  of  this  effete  incapable  dynasty,  we 
do  so  at  the  cost  of  five  millions  of  people.”  Yet  he 
wrote  more  in  pain  than  in  anger,  for  “ I have  ever 
advocated  the  maintenance  of  the  few  remaining 
native  states  in  India  so  long  as  they  retain  any  prin- 
ciple of  vitality,  and  we  can  uphold  them  consistently 
with  our  duty  as  the  permanent  power  in  India,  and 
in  accordance  with  our  treaty  pledges.” 

In  1855  the  Court  of  Directors  finally  decided  that 
the  annexation  of  Oudh  should  be  carried  out  by 
Lord  Dalhousie,  who,  on  the  13th  of  February,  1856, 
recorded  that,  “ in  humble  reliance  on  the  blessing 
of  the  Almighty  (for  millions  of  His  creatures  will 
draw  happiness  from  the  change),  I approach  the 
execution  of  this  duty  gravely  and  not  without 
solicitude,  but  calmly  and  altogether  without  doubt.” 
The  King  Wajid  Ah'  received  a pension  of  ^120,000 
a year,  and  after  appealing  in  vain  through  a mission 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  LAPSE.  265 

to  England  against  the  sentence,  withdrew  from 
Oudh  and  took  up  his  residence  in  Calcutta. 

The  further  annexations  of  Lord  Dalhousie  were 
deliberately  carried  out  because  he  considered  they 
were  not  only  expedient  but  just. 

To  every  Hindu  it  is  necessary  that  there  should 
be  a son,  real  or  adoptive,  to  carry  out  the  funeral 
rites  enjoined  by  his  religion  as  obligatory  for  the 
salvation  of  his  soul  after  death.  The  adopted  son, 
whether  nominated  by  the  deceased  or  appointed 
with  his  consent  by  his  widow,  has  an  undoubted 
right  under  Hindu  law  to  succeed  to  the  private 
property  of  his  father  by  adoption,  but  without  the 
consent  of  the  paramount  power  the  adopted  son  has 
no  inherent  right  to  succeed  to  the  dependent  ruler- 
ship  or  chieftainship  of  his  adoptive  father’s  terri- 
tories. If  the  paramount  power  refuse  to  recognise 
the  adoption  the  estate  lapses  by  default  to  the 
paramount  power. 

Satara  was  the  first  state  to  which  Lord  Dalhousie 
applied  the  doctrine  of  lapse. 

After  the  Mar^tha  war  of  1818,  when  the  power  of 
the  Peshwa  was  broken  in  pieces,  a portion  of  his 
territories  was  bestowed  on  the  last  descendant  of 
Sivaji,  who  was  taken  from  prison  and  nominated  Rajd 
of  Satara  with  the  succession  continued  to  his  “ sons, 
heirs,  and  successors.” 

In  1839  the  Raja  was  deposed  and  his  brother 
installed  in  the  chieftainship.  To  the  brother  there 
were  no  heirs,  but  in  his  last  moments  he  adopted  a 
son.  The  Court  of  Directors  thereupon  decided,  in 
accordance  with  the  opinion  of  the  Governor-General, 


266 


THE  MUTINY. 


that  “ we  are  fully  satisfied  that  by  the  general  law 
and  custom  of  India  a dependent  principality  like 
that  of  Satara  cannot  pass  to  an  adopted  heir  without 
the  consent  of  the  paramount  power  ; that  we  are 
under  no  pledge,  direct  or  constructive,  to  give  such 
consent ; and  that  the  general  interests  committed  to 
our  charge  are  best  considered  by  withholding  it.” 
Accordingly  Satara  was  annexed,  and  this  policy 
was  consistently  followed  out  by  Lord  Dalhousie  in 
other  cases  where  he  deemed  that  the  establishment 
of  a permanent  British  rule  would  be  more  conducive 
to  the  happiness  and  welfare  of  the  people  than  a 
native  government. 

It  was  not  until  after  the  Mutiny  that  Lord 
Canning  formally  proclaimed  that  this  policy  of 
annexation  was  finally  abandoned,  that  all  friendly 
chiefs  would  be  allowed  for  the  future  to  pass  on 
their  succession  to  adopted  sons. 

Another  annexation  made  by  Lord  Dalhousie  was 
that  of  the  wild  hill  country  to  the  south-west  of 
Bengal  known  as  Sambalpur,  which  lapsed  to  the 
Company  on  the  death  of  its  ruler,  who  had  declined 
to  accept  an  heir. 

The  next  case  the  Governor-General  had  to  deal 
with  was  the  Maratha  state  of  Jhansi,  ceded  by  the 
Peshwa  in  1817,  which  had  gone  through  a period  of 
disorder  and  misrule  during  the  chieftainship  of  its 
first  two  rulers.  When  the  Raja  died  in  1853,  leaving 
no  male  heirs,  Lord  Dalhousie  refused  to  acknowledge 
the  right  of  the  adopted  son,  took  possession  of  the 
estate,  and  granted  to  the  enraged  widow  a pension 
for  her  maintenance — a proceeding  which  implanted 


NANA  SAHIB. 


in  her  the  seeds  of  an  undying  hatred  and  treasured 
store  of  vengeance  against  the  British  Government, 
which  she  poured  forth  unrelentingly  during  her 
short  but  brilliant  career  in  the  Mutiny. 

Many  other  minor  states  were  similarly  annexed, 
the  most  important  being  Nagpur,  a tract  now  form- 
ing four-fifths  of  the  Central  provinces,  with  113,279 
square  miles  of  territory,  and  a population  of  twelve 
millions  of  people. 

In  the  south  the  old  title  of  Nawfib,  or  local 
Governor  of  the  Emperors  at  Delhi,  was  allowed  to 
lapse  on  the  death,  in  1855,  of  the  last  holder  without 
heirs,  an  uncle,  Azim  Jah,  being  given  an  allowance 
ultimately  fixed  at  ,£30,000  a year. 

The  most  noted,  and  the  most  ill-fated,  of  all  Lord 
Dalhousie’s  acts,  was  the  withdrawal  of  the  pension 
of  ^80,000  a year  from  Nana  Sahib,  the  adopted  son 
of  Baji  Rao,  “ the  last  of  the  Peshwas.”  On  the 
death  of  Baji  Rao,  Nana  Sahib  obtained  the  fortune 
left  by  his  father  by  adoption,  and  the  estate  he  had 
lived  on  at  Bithur,  but  he  was  deprived  of  the 
Peshwa’s  life  pension.  Nana  Sahib  sent  emissaries  to 
England,  and  fomented  intrigues  far  and  wide. 
What  part  he  took  in  the  Mutiny  will  never  be 
fully  known,  except  as  far  as  it  is  certain  that  he  was 
responsible  for  the  massacre  of  Cawnpur. 

Well  might  Lord  Dalhousie  write  as,  on  the 
journey  home,  he  surveyed  the  changes  which  had 
come  over  India  in  his  days  : “ During  the  eight 
years  over  which  we  now  look  back  the  British  terri- 
tories in  the  East  have  been  largely  increased. 
Within  that  time  four  kingdoms  have  passed  under 


268 


THE  MUTINY. 


the  sceptre  of  the  Queen  of  England,  and  various 
chieftainships  and  separate  tracts  have  been  brought 
under  her  sway.” 

Many  greater  changes  than  these  Lord  Dalhousie 
lived  to  see  before  he  left  India,  and  many  more  he 
knew  were  soon  to  come.  In  1853  his  famous  Rail- 
way Minute  clearly  indicated  the  main  lines  on 
which  the  great  system  of  railways  has  been  ex- 
tended in  India  by  public  companies  working  under 
a State  guarantee. 

In  1854  Sir  C.  Wood,  afterwards  Lord  Halifax, 
drafted  the  despatch  which  set  forth  a new  scheme 
of  State  education  in  India,  according  to  which  the 
vernacular  languages,  and  neither  English  nor  the 
classical  languages,  were  to  be  the  main  channel  for 
the  instruction  of  the  native  population. 

The  introduction  of  the  telegraph  and  half-anna 
postage  was  to  the  bewildered  gaze  of  the  old-fashioned 
conservative  native  a sign  that  a new  era  had  dawned 
on  the  East,  and  that  for  good  or  evil  the  old  would 
soon  pass  away.  The  time  seemed  already  drawing 
nigh  when  the  habits,  customs,  and  even  religion  of 
the  foreigners  might  supersede  the  very  principles  on 
which  the  whole  fabric  of  social  law  and  order  of  the 
land  had  for  long  ages  been  patiently,  if  somewhat 
fantastically,  built  up  by  the  cunning  hands  of  the 
priestly  guides,  the  Brahman  hierarchy,  men  held 
sacred,  honoured  as  possessed  of  secret  lore,  and  as 
the  hereditary  custodians  of  all  the  revealed  ordi- 
nances of  the  Divine  Creator. 

Round  about  throbbed  the  deepest  emotions  which 
could  sway  the  whole  life  of  a people.  To  the 


THE  SEPOYS. 


269 


natives  the  coming  and  going  of  their  rulers  mattered 
not ; they  lived  in  a land  accustomed  for  long  cen- 
turies past  to  ever-changing  scenes  of  continuous 
strife  and  warfare,  to  the  rise  and  fall  of  principalities 
and  empires,  all  more  splendid  in  their  barbaric  pomp 
and  wealth  than  the  strong  iron  rule  of  the  British. 
Even  nature  itself  was  ever  restless,  storms,  famines, 
and  pestilence  arising  sudden  amid  profound  calm 
and  quiet,  to  rage  to  and  fro  and  then  pass  away 
leaving  the  stillness  of  death  behind.  The  people 
had  long  learned  to  bow  their  heads  before  the  con- 
quering hands  of  their  invaders,  and  the  swift,  sudden 
vengeance  of  their  many  gods,  who  dwelt  far  away  in 
the  changing  heavens  or  abode  near  at  hand  in  the 
sacred  groves,  and  on  the  thresholds  of  their  homes. 
Amid  all  changes  the  village  life  remained  unaltered  : 
the  cultivator  heeded  not  the  passing  wave  of  con- 
quest, the  village  folk  still  listened  to  the  legendary 
tales  of  old,  they  still  held  to  the  customs  and  occu- 
pations of  their  forefathers,  and  the  power  of  the 
Brahmans  held  sway. 

So  long  as  no  more  than  the  customary  amount  of 
taxation  was  exacted  it  mattered  not  much  who 
ruled  the  land.  Of  national  life,  national  feeling, 
there  is  even  now  but  little  ; the  people  of  India  are 
divided  from  one  another  by  race,  language,  and 
sentiment  even  more  than  are  the  Russian,  German, 
French,  Italian,  English,  from  one  another  in  the 
West. 

For  one  hundred  years  the  inhabitants  of  the  land 
had  watched  unmoved  the  growth  of  the  English 
power.  The  rule  of  the  Mughal  Emperor  had  faded 


270 


THE  MUTINY. 


away,  the  last  representative  lived  in  obscurity  in  his 
palace  at  Delhi,  surrounded  by  a few  retainers,  and 
the  order  of  the  Governor-General  had  gone  forth  that 
on  his  death  the  child  of  his  favourite  wife  would  be 
removed  from  Delhi,  the  imperial  city  of  his  fore- 
fathers, and  deprived  of  the  title  and  dignity  of  King. 

From  the  time  when  Clive  defended  Arcot  native 
troops  had  fought  willingly  under  the  command  of 
the  English.  When  Siraj-ud-Daula  sealed  his  fate 
by  the  outrage  of  the  Black  Hole  of  Calcutta,  Clive 
brought  with  him  from  Madras,  where  there  were  ten 
thousand  sepoys,  two  well-drilled  battalions  to  aid 
the  English  troops,  then  but  some  nine  hundred  in 
number.  Eight  years  afterwards  the  English  had 
disciplined  nineteen  battalions  of  Bengal  sepoys,  each 
battalion  one  thousand  strong.  Assured  of  the 
loyalty  of  these  native  troops,  the  rulers  would  keep 
in  check  the  disbanded  troopers  and  Talukdars, 
hereditary  rent-collectors  or  landlords  of  Oudh  ; 
they  could  enforce  the  decisions  of  the  Inam  Com- 
missions, who  had  in  a few  years  examined  the  titles 
and  confiscated  three-fifths  of  thirty-five  thousand 
estates  for  want  of  title — estates  granted  to  the 
holders  by  former  native  rulers  for  services  rendered 
without  any  formal  record  ; they  could  neglect  the 
brooding  hate  of  the  heir  to  the  throne  of  the 
Peshwas  and  silent  wrath  of  the  widowed  Rani  of 
Jhansi,  deem  that  the  fierce  soldiers  of  Holkar  and 
Sindhia  would  cease  to  dream  of  lawless  rapine  and 
deeds  of  bravery,  that  men  whose  fortunes  had  been 
carved  out  by  the  sword  would  rejoice  when  naught 
was  left  them  to  fight  for.  Through  all  the  sepoy 


PRE  VIOUS  MUTINIES. 


271 


would  stand  firm  so  long  as  his  pay,  his  caste,  his 
hereditary  habits  and  religious  sentiments  were  left 
untouched,  but  in  defence  of  these  he  had  often 
shown  how  calmly  he  could  sacrifice  even  his  life. 

In  1764,  when  on  the  eve  of  the  battle  of  Baksar 
the  prize-money  demanded  by  the  English  troops 
was  withheld  from  the  sepoys  in  proportions  they 
considered  their  due,  their  native  officers  came  forth 
and  openly  declared  that  their  troops  would  not  fight 
in  the  coming  battle.  Four  tall  grenadiers,  who  had 
often  led  their  comrades  in  many  an  action,  and  held 
as  a right  the  foremost  post  in  hours  of  peril,  now 
stepped  forward  and  claimed  the  privilege  of  dying 
first  of  those  condemned  to  death  for  mutiny.  They 
vvere  tied  to  guns  and  blown  to  pieces.  Twenty-four 
of  the  sepoys  had  the  same  retribution  meted  out  to 
them  by  the  unflinching  command  of  Major  Hector 
Munro,  who  knew  the  danger  that  lurked  beneath 
rebellion  not  speedily  repressed. 

At  Vellore,  in  1806,  the  sepoys,  roused  by  insults 
and  childish  repressions,  again  rose  in  mutiny, 
murdered  their  officers  and  the  European  soldiers 
quartered  in  the  fort,  only  to  fall  themselves,  slain 
beneath  the  sabres  of  Gillespie’s  dragoons.  The  same 
note  of  warning  had  again  and  again  been  sounded  ; 
the  sepoys  stolidly  and  consistently  showing  that, 
willing  as  they  were  to  fight  for  the  English,  they 
would  not  tamely  brook  interference  with  their 
cherished  rights,  habits,  and  beliefs. 

The  47th  had  been  mowed  down  rather  than  sail 
across  the  black  waters  during  the  first  Burmese  war ; 
the  34th  had  been  struck  off  the  army  list  sooner  than 


2J2 


THE  MUTINY. 


march  to  Sind  without  receiving  extra  allowance ; 
the  66th  had  been  disbanded  for  refusing  to  serve  in 
the  Punjab  without  extra  pay.  Lord  Dalhousie  had 
to  acknowledge  the  right  of  the  38th  to  refuse  to 
embark  for  service  in  Arakan  during  the  second 
Burmese  war,  while  Lord  Canning  found,  to  his 
surprise,  that  nine-twelfths  of  the  whole  Bengal  army 
could  absolutely  refuse  to  serve  beyond  the  seas. 

Sir  Charles  Napier  resigned  his  office  as  Com- 
mander-in-Chief  when  Lord  Dalhousie  refused  to 
acknowledge  the  necessity  for  exceptional  treatment 
of  the  troops  in  the  Punjab.  The  Governor-General 
at  the  time  wrote  as  follows  : “ There  is  no  justifica- 
tion for  the  cry  that  India  was  in  danger.  Free  from 
all  threats  of  hostilities  from  without,  and  secure, 
through  the  submission  of  its  new  subjects,  from 
insurrection  within,  the  safety  of  India  has  never  for 
one  moment  been  imperilled  by  the  partial  insubordi- 
nation in  the  ranks  of  the  army.”  This  view  was  sup- 
ported by  the  Duke  of  Wellington  in  his  memorandum 
on  the  matter : “ A close  examination  of  the  papers 
sent  to  me  by  Sir  Charles  Napier  himself,  with  his 
report  of  the  transaction,  convinced  me  that  there  was 
no  mutiny  of  the  troops  at  Wazfrabad  in  December, 
1849,  and  January,  1850.  There  were  murmurings 
and  complaints,  but  no  mutiny.  But  it  appears, 
according  to  Sir  Charles  Napier’s  statement,  that 
there  existed  in  the  country  a general  mutiny,  which 
pervaded  the  whole  army  of  40,000  men  in  the 
Punjab  in  the  month  of  January,  1850.” 

Vigorous  and  triumphant  as  the  policy  of  Lord 
Dalhousie  was  there  were  not  a few  who  saw  the 


CHRISTIANITY. 


273 


elements  of  danger  in  the  rapid  changes  that  had 
taken  place  during  his  administration.  A period  of 
rest  was  needed  to  allow  both  the  people  and  their 
rulers  to  determine  to  what  extent  the  ideals  and 
principles  of  Western  progress  and  development 
might  with  advantage  and  safety  be  introduced  into 
the  East.  Lord  Palmerston  had,  in  1855,  expressed 
a hope  not  unlonged  for  by  many,  when,  at  the  banquet 
given  by  the  Court  of  Directors,  he  announced  that 
“ perhaps  it  might  be  our  lot  to  confer  on  the  count- 
less millions  of  India  a higher  and  nobler  gift  than 
any  mere  human  knowledge’’ — a gift  that,  with  a 
fervour  rising  above  criticism,  English  officers  had 
endeavoured  to  induce  their  sepoys  to  accept.  “ I 
have  been  in  the  habit,”  declared  an  English  officer 
in  1857,  “of  speaking  to  natives  of  all  classes,  sepoys 
and  others,  making  no  distinction,  since  there  is  no 
respect  of  persons  with  God,  on  the  subject  of  our 
religion,  in  the  highways,  cities,  bazaars,  and  villages 
— not  in  the  lines  and  regimental  bazaars.  I have 
done  this  from  a conviction  that  every  converted 
Christian  is  expected,  or  rather  commanded  by  the 
Scriptures,  to  make  known  the  glad  tidings  of  salva- 
tion to  his  fellow  creatures.” 

Many  more  forcible  instances  might  be  given  of 
commanders  and  administrators  seeking  to  spread 
abroad  the  faith  in  which  they  found  their  surest 
solace  in  this  world  and  firmest  hopes  of  a hereafter, 
were  it  not  for  the  fact  that  it  is  absolutely  impossible 
that  any  scheme  devised  for  the  conversion  of  the 
natives  of  India  to  Christianity  could  affect  their  feel- 
ings of  good  or  ill-will. 


19 


274 


THE  MUTINY. 


To  the  majority  of  the  natives  of  India,  who  are 
still  sunk  in  superstition,  animism,  and  fetishism,  the 
subject  of  religion,  as  apart  from  social  observances, 
has  but  little  meaning  or  interest,  while  for  the 
educated  class  all  discussion  on  the  subject  is  received 
with  open-minded  candour,  so  long  as  no  effort  is 
made  to  interfere  with  their  customs  and  social 
ordinances. 

Thus  the  law  proposed  by  Lord  Dalhousie  and 
passed  by  Lord  Canning  to  encourage  the  remarriage 
of  Hindu  widows,  a law  striving  to  alter  a custom 
founded  on  religious  sentiment,  was  destined  to 
remain  a dead  letter  and  of  but  little  practical 
importance. 

There  were  dangers,  far  deeper  and  independent 
of  these,  known  to  all  men,  yet  when  they  came 
those  who  had  watched  their  growth  were  unprepared 
to  meet  them.  In  February,  1856,  Dalhousie  had 
spoken  warning  words  in  Calcutta  with  reference  to  the 
Santal  insurrection  when  he  said,  “ No  prudent  men 
having  any  knowledge  of  Eastern  affairs  would  ever 
venture  to  predict  a prolonged  continuance  of  peace 
in  India — insurrection  may  rise  like  an  exhalation 
from  the  earth,  and  cruel  violence  worse  than  all  the 
excesses  of  war,  may  be  suddenly  committed  by  men 
who  to  the  very  day  on  which  they  broke  out  in  their 
frenzy  of  blood,  have  been  regarded  as  a simple 
harmless  and  timid  race.”  In  August,  1855,  Lord 
Canning,  at  the  farewell  banquet  given  by  the 
Directors,  sent  his  hearers  away  wondering  at  the 
solemnity  of  his  words,  as  he  gave  warning  that 
“We  must  not  forget  that  in  the  sky  of  India,  serene 


THE  NATIVE  ARMY. 


275 


as  it  is,  a small  cloud  may  arise,  at  first  no  bigger 
than  a man’s  hand,  but  which  growing  bigger  and 
bigger  may  at  last  threaten  to  overwhelm  us  with 
ruin.” 

When  Lord  Canning  reached  India  he  found  there 
were  but  45,332  European  troops  to  233,000  sepoys, 
and  12,000  native  gunners  to  6,500  European,  while 
for  the  750  miles  stretching  from  Barrackpur  to  Agra, 
there  was  only  one  European  regiment  at  Dinapur. 

Lord  Dalhousie’s  remonstrances,  minutes,  and  warn- 
ings had  been  neglected,  two  European  regiments 
had  been  withdrawn  for  service  in  the  Crimea,  and 
not  replaced  ; others  had  been  sent  to  the  Persian 
Gulf  under  Sir  James  Outram  to  force  the  Shah  to 
retire  from  Herat. 

Strange  stories  came  from  the  Crimea : it  was 
rumoured  that  the  English  had  been  defeated  by  the 
Czar,  who  was  now  prepared  to  invade  India.  A 
proclamation  was  posted  on  the  walls  of  the  Jumma 
Musji'd  at  Delhi,  in  which  all  true  Muhammadans 
were  called  upon  to  be  ready  to  join  an  army,  soon  to 
be  sent  by  the  Shah  of  Persia  to  restore  the  true  faith 
and  drive  the  English  out  of  India.  Among  the  people 
it  was  whispered  that  it  had  been  prophesied  of  old 
that  a white  race  should  rule  for  one  hundred  years 
in  the  sacred  land  of  India,  and  that  now  the  days 
were  numbered  up  since  the  field  of  Plassey.  Rumours 
of  change  flew  with  winged  speed.  All  men  knew  that 
strange  things  were  happening  of  which  they  hesitated 
to  speak  ; midnight  meetings  of  the  sepoys  were 
followed  by  sudden  and  sullen  disrespect  towards 
their  officers.  Xana  Sahib  was  passing  to  and  fro  from 


276 


THE  MUTINY. 


Bithur  to  Kalpi,  to  Delhi  and  Lucknow.  A learned 
Mulvi  from  Faizabad  in  Oudh  had  journeyed  through 
Delhi,  Meerut,  Patna,  and  Calcutta,  preaching  sedition, 
deftly  weaving  the  hidden  threads  of  a widespread 
conspiracy  before  the  very  eyes  of  the  English 
officers,  who  smiled  at  the  superstitious  ways  of  the 
people  who  were  sending  Chapatis,  or  small  pieces  of 
unleavened  bread,  from  village  to  village,  none  know- 
ing why  or  by  whose  order,  but  all  feeling  that  some 
strange  secret  was  abroad  in  their  midst. 

Louder  grew  the  rumours ; the  sepoys  spoke  out 
their  fears  that  the  English  desired  to  break  down 
their  laws  of  caste  and  customs  so  that  they  might 
sail  over  the  seas  and  conquer  the  world.  All  might 
have  passed  without  history  knowing  of  the  strange 
story  were  it  not  that  the  whole  edifice  of  folly  was 
crowned  by  a stupendous  blunder,  fraught  with  fatal 
consequences. 

The  old  “ Brown  Bess  ” musket  had  been  discarded 
for  the  English  rifle,  which  required  specially  greased 
cartridges.  Some  cartridges  had  been  sent  out  from 
England,  some  were  manufactured  at  Calcutta  and 
at  Meerut.  Suddenly,  from  January,  1857,  the  news 
spread  like  wildfire  that  the  cartridges  had  been 
greased  with  the  fat  of  pigs  and  cows — the  first  an 
animal  abhorred  by  all  Muhammadans  and  even 
English  people  residing  in  the  East,  the  last  an 
animal  held  sacred  by  all  Hindus,  the  slaying  of 
which  is  even  to-day  prohibited  in  many  purely 
native  states  and  resented  so  much  by  the  Sikhs 
from  sentiment,  and  not  from  religious  feeling,  that 
it  was  accounted  one  of  the  primary  causes  of 


DISCONTENT. 


2 77 


the  second  Sikh  war.  It  was  impossible  to  retrieve 
the  blunder,  it  was  impossible  to  explain  it  away  or 
reassure  the  natives  that  no  such  cartridges  would  in 
the  future  be  issued,  that  the  sepoys  might  manu- 
facture their  own  cartridges  or  have  full  proof  that  no 
polluting  material  would  be  used. 

Panic  spread,  carefully  fomented  by  the  cunning 
skill  of  the  discontented. 

At  Barrackpur  fires  broke  out  in  the  cantonments 
and  civil  lines  ; at  Berhampur,  1 20  miles  to  the  north 
of  Calcutta,  the  19th  Native  Infantry  flatly  refused 
to  receive  even  the  percussion  caps  served  out  to 
them  on  parade,  and  the  anger  of  their  commanding 
officer,  Colonel  Mitchell  only  increased  their  sus- 
picions. 

At  Barrackpur  Colonel  Hearsey  endeavoured  to 
allay  the  excitement  of  his  troops,  the  34th  Native 
Infantry.  He  assured  them  that  they  might  grease 
their  own  cartridges,  that  it  was  childish  to  suppose 
the  Government  had  any  desire  to  interfere  with 
their  caste  or  religion  : his  words  fell  on  unbelieving 
ears. 

In  Calcutta  the  news  was  received  with  consterna- 
tion ; plots  had  been  discovered  whereby  the  fort  was 
to  be  seized  by  the  natives  and  all  the  English  mur- 
dered during  a garden-fete  to  be  given  by  Mahdrdja 
Sindhia  at  the  Botanical  Gardens  across  the  Hugh — 
a plot  supposed  to  have  been  frustrated  by  the  rain 
falling  and  the  proposed  fete-day  being  abandoned. 

From  Calcutta  to  Dinapur,  some  300  miles  away; 
there  was  but  a single  English  regiment  on  which  the 
safety  of  Bengal  depended.  The  84th  was  hastily 


278 


THE  MUTINY. 


summoned  from  Rangoon  while  the  19th  Native 
Infantry,  having  on  its  muster  400  high  caste 
Brahmans,  was,  on  March  31st,  paid  off  and  dis- 
banded, the  sepoys,  as  they  marched  away  vowing 
vengeance  on  the  34th  Native  Infantry,  who  had 
told  them  the  story  of  the  polluted  cartridges. 

Two  days  before  a young  sepoy  of  the  34th  Native 
Infantry,  Manghal  PAndi,  marched  out  in  front  of  the 
Quarter  Guard  and  fired  at  his  adjutant,  whom  he  cut 
down  with  his  sword.  As  the  two  struggled  on  the 
ground,  only  one  single  Muhammadan  out  of  all  the 
assembled  sepoys  came  to  the  assistance  of  the 
English  officer.  If  the  promptitude  and  presence  of 
mind  displayed  on  the  occasion  by  the  commanding 
officer,  Colonel  Hearsey,  had  been  afterwards  shown 
at  Meerut,  the  Mutiny  would  have  been  quickly 
checked.  Having  heard  the  news  he  hastily  rode 
down  with  his  two  sons  to  the  parade-ground.  As  he 
approached,  cries  of  warning  came  that  the  sepoy  was 
taking  aim:  “Damn  his  musket !”  cried  the  colonel, 
who  turned  and  charged  his  son,  in  case  he  fell,  to 
ride  the  mutineer  down.  Manghal  Pandi  waited  not ; 
grounding  his  gun  he  placed  his  foot  on  the  trigger 
and  fell  wounded  to  the  ground.  On  the  8th  of  April 
he  was  hanged  in  front  of  the  regiment,  which  was 
disbanded  towards  the  end  of  the  month.  By  many 
it  was  considered  that  a fatal  leniency  had  been  shown, 
especially  in  the  case  of  some  of  the  sepoys  who  had 
struck  their  adjutant  when  he  was  attacked  by  Manghal 
Pdndi. 

Meanwhile  the  panic  spread  to  Ambala,  one 
thousand  miles  from  Calcutta.  There  the  sepoys 


HENRY  LAWRENCE. 

(From  “ A Year  on  the  Punjab  Frontier , by  Major  Herbert  Eiiwardes.) 


2 8o 


THE  MUTINY. 


refused  to  receive  the  cartridges,  and  Lord  Canning 
refused  to  give  way,  for  now  there  were  no  grounds 
for  suspecting  that  they  had  not  been  properly 
manufactured. 

From  Cawnpur  worse  news  came,  for  there  the 
sepoys  would  not  accept  the  Government  flour,  which 
they  alleged  had  been  mingled  with  the  dust  of  cow 
bones  so  that  the  caste  of  the  Hindus  might  be 
destroyed. 

From  Oudh  came  similar  news.  Sir  Henry 
Lawrence  had  to  disarm  the  7th  Oudh  Irregular 
Infantry  who  likewise  refused  to  receive  the  cart- 
ridges. From  Meerut  came  the  worse  tidings  of  all 
— eighty-five  troopers  of  the  3rd  Native  Cavalry  had 
declined  even  to  touch  the  cartridges.  They  were 
tried  by  court-martial,  and  in  May  awarded  from 
six  to  ten  years’  imprisonment  each. 

On  the  morning  of  the  9th  of  May  the  eighty-five 
men  were  marched  down  to  the  parade-ground,  and 
in  front  of  a regiment  of  English  dragoons,  the  60th 
Rifles,  a strong  force  of  horse  and  foot  artillery, 
and  the  11th  and  20th  Regiments  of  the  Native 
Infantry,  they  were  stripped  of  their  uniform,  heavily 
ironed,  and  marched  to  the  gaol,  where  they  were 
placed  under  a guard  of  sepoys. 

On  the  morning  of  the  next  day,  Sunday,  General 
Hewitt  telegraphed  to  headquarters  that  the  sentence 
had  been  carried  out,  and  that  the  behaviour  of  the  rest 
of  the  native  troops  was  excellent,  while  private  letters 
received  from  the  officers  of  the  native  regiments  told 
that  the  sepoys  were  never  behaving  better.  The  day 
passed  as  usual  in  the  English  cantonment,  the 


MUTINY  AT  MEERUT.  28 1 

English  officers  and  European  soldiers  waited  for  the 
long,  hot  day  to  cease  when  in  the  quickly  fading 
twilight  the  tolling  of  the  bell  would  rouse  them  for 
the  church  parade.  In  the  distant  sepoy  lines  wild 
commotion  raged  ; there  all  spoke  of  the  foul  injustice 
meted  out  to  the  eighty-five  troopers  who  had  pre- 
ferred to  leave  a regiment,  so  long  their  home,  rather 
than  lose  their  honour  here  and  hopes  of  an  eternal 
hereafter.  They  spoke  of  the  coming  downfall  of  the 
English  rule ; of  the  Emperor  at  Delhi  who  was  ready 
to  proclaim  himself  once  more  and  gather  round  his 
banner  all  who  would  fight  against  the  revilers  of  the 
true  Muhammadan  faith  and  defilers  of  the  caste-laws 
of  the  Hindus.  The  native  servants  collected  in  groups 
behind  their  masters’  bungalows,  and  spoke  in  whispers 
of  the  coming  night,  a few  stole  forward  at  the  last 
moment  to  beg  those  they  had  long  served  not  to  go 
that  evening  to  the  church.  Some  of  the  English 
officers  having  heard  of  the  excitement  hastened  to 
the  lines  where  the  sepoys  were  quartered.  Colonel 
Finnis,  commandant  of  the  I ith  Native  Infantry  rode 
up  to  address  the  sepoys  ; he  was  riddled  with  bullets, 
his  death  being  followed  by  that  of  Captain  Mac- 
donald of  the  20th. 

The  3rd  Native  Cavalry  had,  in  the  meantime, 
gone  to  the  gaol  and  brought  back  in  triumph  their 
eighty-five  imprisoned  companions  to  join  with  the 
sepoys  of  the  1 1 th  and  20th,  who  had  now  broken 
into  open  mutiny. 

The  bazaars  soon  thronged  with  crowds  armed  with 
sticks,  staves,  spears,  and  swords  eager  for  the  coming 
carnival  of  riot,  plunder,  and  unrestrained  licence. 


282 


THE  MUTINY. 


The  Europeans  in  the  cantonments  on  their  way  to 
church  saw  in  the  distance  the  flames  shoot  out  from 
the  west,  where  the  bungalows  were  burning,  while 
nearer  and  nearer  sounded  the  musket-shots  and  cries 
of  the  mob  as  it  issued  forth  from  the  city  to  shoot  them 
down  as  they  hurried  home  in  their  carriages  and  en- 
deavoured to  escape  through  the  swiftness  of  their 
horses.  Though  there  were  enough  English  troops, 
artillery,  rifles,  and  carabineers  to  scatter  the  muti- 
neers and  all  the  badmashes  of  the  city  from  out 
of  Meerut,  there  was  no  head  to  guide  them,  no 
Gillespie  as  at  Vellore,  no  Hearsey  as  at  Barrackpur, 
to  lead  them  forth  and  save  India  from  the  horrors 
that  ensued.  Useless  it  is  now  to  recall  the  mournful 
tale  of  divided  counsel,  repudiated  responsibility,  and 
senile  incapacity  which  held  the  English  troops  in 
check  that  night  of  the  18th  of  May,  while  English 
women  were  crying  for  help  or  waiting  for  death  to 
relieve  them  from  an  even  more  dreadful  fate,  while 
innocent  children  were  being  hewn  in  pieces,  while 
houses  were  being  burned  and  plundered  by  escaped 
malefactors,  and  the  raging  mob  of  vile  wretches 
which  an  Eastern  city  ever  holds  in  its  midst  was 
roused  to  lawless  passion  by  scenes  of  bloodshed  and 
destruction. 

All  night  long  the  fires  raged  in  Meerut;  the  Euro- 
pean civil  inhabitants  sought  shelter  with  their  wives 
and  children  in  the  gardens  surrounding  the  smoulder- 
ing embers  of  their  late  homes  ; women  left  without 
their  husbands  were  brutally  murdered,  a few  being 
guarded  safely  to  places  of  refuge  by  faithful  troopers 
and  servants. 


THE  REBELS  AT  DELHI. 


283 


In  the  morning  the  marauding  bands  crept  back  to 
the  city  and  neighbouring  villages,  and  the  garrison 
was  left  to  gather  together  the  mutilated  corpses  of 
the  slain  in  the  theatre  of  the  station. 

The  sepoys,  terrified  by  their  deeds,  escaped  to 
their  homes ; the  cavalry  rode  on  to  Delhi,  there  to 
proclaim  the  effete  King  once  more  Emperor  of  India. 

The  overwhelming  force  at  Meerut  took  no  ven- 
geance on  the  guilty  city,  nor  were  the  mutineers 
followed  to  Delhi,  which  was  left  to  its  fate. 

Early  in  the  morning  of  the  11th  of  May  the 
escaped  cavalry  bivouacked  in  the  Diwan-i-Am,  or 
Public  Hallof  Audience,  at  Delhi,  where  they  clamoured 
for  the  aged  Emperor  Bahadur  Shah  to  claim  his 
Empire  and  receive  their  homage,  for  the  English 
garrison  at  Meerut  had  been  defeated. 

Captain  Douglas,  the  commandant  of  the  palace 
guards,  Mr.  Jennings,  the  chaplain,  his  daughter  and 
a lady  staying  with  them,  were  soon  slain;  Mr.  Fraser, 
the  commissioner,  was  cut  down  in  the  palace  at  the 
foot  of  the  stairs,  his  head  paraded  through  the  streets 
and  carried  to  the  Mughal  Emperor,  that  he  might 
know  of  the  fall  of  the  English  rule. 

Swift  flashed  the  news  to  Ambala,  the  signaller 
having  to  fly  before  the  mutineers  the  moment  he 
sent  the  message. 

The  English  bungalows  were  burned,  the  Delhi 
College  sacked,  Mr.  Taylor,  the  principal,  and  his 
assistants  killed,  and  men,  women,  and  children  were 
hunted  out  and  murdered.  Mr.  Beresford,  of  the 
Delhi  Bank,  with  his  wife  and  two  daughters  bravely 
defended  themselves  with  spears  on  the  roof  of  their 


284 


THE  MUTINY. 


home  until  at  length  they  were  slain,  thus  escaping 
the  insults,  torments  and  cruel  death  which  awaited 
those  who  were  captured  and  murdered  afterwards 
on  the  13th  and  16th  of  May,  when  nigh  on  fifty 
captives  were  ruthlessly  butchered  in  the  palace. 

Colonel  Ripley  marched  his  sepoys,  those  of  the 
54th  Native  Infantry,  from  their  cantonments  on  the 
ridge  outside  Delhi  against  the  mutineers  in  the 
city ; but  as  he  gave  the  order  to  charge  he  was  cut 
down,  and  received  fifteen  wounds  ; of  his  officers, 
Captains  Smith  and  Burrows,  Lieutenants  Edwards 
and  Waterfield,  and  Dr.  Dopping  were  killed,  and 
Captain  Gordon,  of  the  74th,  fell  shot  through  the 
heart. 

The  38th  Native  Regiment,  now  also  openly 
mutinous,  deserted  to  join  the  rebel  camp  in  the 
city.  On  the  ridge  the  English  officers,  the  rescued 
women  and  children,  were  grouped  together  in  the 
flagstaff  tower,  doubting  if  it  were  better  to  fly  or 
wait  for  aid  from  Meerut  or  Agra.  Suddenly  from 
the  city  a vast  column  of  black  smoke  rushed  upward, 
and  the  flames  leaped  high,  throwing  a lurid  light  far 
and  wide,  followed  by  a mighty  roar,  the  signal  to 
the  survivors  that  for  them  no  longer  remained  any 
hope.  Lieutenant  Willoughby  and  his  garrison  of 
eight  heroes,  sooner  than  yield  their  charge,  had 
blown  up  the  powder  magazine,  and  scattered  death 
and  destruction  amid  the  mass  of  natives  who  swarmed 
on  and  around  its  wall.  Of  those  who  escaped  from 
the  city  by  being  lowered  from  its  ramparts,  and  of 
those  who  hurried  from  the  flagstaff  tower,  many  fled  to 
the  open  country,  to  be  there  slain  by  the  villagers  ; 


DELA  y. 


285 


others,  men  bleeding  from  many  wounds,  women 
carrying  infants  but  a few  months  old,  slowly  stole  on 
during  the  night-time  or  else  wearily  wandered  on  in 
the  daytime,  bareheaded  and  barefooted,  faint  beneath 
a burning  sun,  sometimes  beaten,  sometimes  insulted, 
occasionally  meeting  with  kindness,  and  snatching  a 
hasty  meal  stealthily  brought  to  them  by  those  natives 
who  deplored  their  forlorn  condition  but  feared  to 
aid  them  openly.  At  length,  after  many  days  and 
nights  of  pain,  they  were  released  from  their  suffering 
by  death  or  else  happily  found  refuge  among  friends 
at  Agra,  Karnal,  or  Ambala.  Delhi  was  left  in  the 
hands  of  the  rebels,  where  the  aged  Emperor  again 
sat  on  the  throne  of  his  forefathers,  whence  he  issued 
his  feeble  orders  to  the  troops  who,  under  the  nominal 
command  of  Mi'rza  Mughal,  the  Emperor’s  son, 
defied  all  authority,  pillaged,  robbed  and  plundered 
the  merchants,  bringing  back  to  the  people  memories 
of  the  old  days  when  Nadir  Shah  devastated  their 
land. 

When  the  news  reached  Ambala  the  Commander- 
in-Chief,  General  Anson,  had  to  wait  nearly  a month 
before  he  could  assemble  together  3,800  troops,  it 
being  found  even  then  absolutely  impossible  to  collect 
the  necessary  transport. 

Ere  the  avenging  army  reached  Karnal  on  the  27th 
of  May,  General  Anson  was  seized  with  cholera  and 
died.  It  was  not  until  the  8th  of  June  that  the  small 
army,  now  under  General  Barnard,  reached  Badliki- 
Sarai,  six  miles  from  Delhi,  where  they  found  the 
mutineers  strongly  entrenched,  and  determined  to 
dispute  the  passage  by  the  Trunk  Road, 


286 


THE  MUTINY. 


The  Europeans,  3,000  in  number,  supported  by  one 
battalion  of  Gurkhas  and  twenty-four  guns,  drove  the 
enemy  back  into  Delhi,  and  captured  twenty-six  of  their 
guns.  Unable  to  enter  the  city,  the  British  troops 
took  up  their  position  along  the  historic  ridge  running 
two  miles  to  the  north  and  west  of  the  fort,  within 
range  of  the  heavy  guns,  howitzers  and  mortars  of 
the  mutineers.  To  assault  the  fort  was  found  im- 
possible. Eight  thousand  sepoys,  well  drilled,  well 
provisioned,  with  more  than  enough  guns,  stood 
entrenched  behind  the  massive  masonry  walls,  12  feet 
thick,  seven  miles  in  extent,  strengthened  by  nume- 
rous bastions,  each  holding  ten  to  fourteen  heavy 
pieces  of  artillery,  surrounded  by  a wide,  dry  ditch  24 
feet  deep.  To  the  mutineers  new  allies  flocked  daily, 
until  by  the  end  of  J une  the  force  at  Delhi  reached  a 
total  of  30,000,  watched  by  a British  army  of  6,500 
men. 

The  Europeans  could  do  little  but  entrench  them- 
selves, hold  the  ridge,  and  wait  anxiously  for  reinforce- 
ments from  Calcutta,  nine  hundred  miles  away,  or 
from  the  Punjab,  where  John  Lawrence  had  10,000 
Europeans  in  twelve  regiments,  36,000  Bengal  sepoys, 
and  20,000  irregular  Punjab  troops  and  police. 

Small  hope  of  help  from  the  Bengal  sepoys,  for  of 
seventy-four  infantry  regiments  but  six  remained  true. 
In  the  Punjab  John  Lawrence  could  do  little  more 
than  maintain  his  position,  secure  the  arsenal  at 
Firozpur  with  its  siege  train  and  stores  of  ammunition, 
disarm  his  native  troops,  or  if  they  mutinied  attack 
and  disperse  them. 

In  Oudh  Sir  Henry  Lawrence  was  left  to  face  some 


UNPOPULARITY  OF  CANNING. 


287 


twenty  battalions  of  native  troops  with  one  British 
regiment,  while  at  Allahabad,  the  key  to  the  disturbed 
districts,  the  sepoy  regiments  mutinied  on  the  8th  of 
June. 

In  the  whole  of  India  there  were  but  39,000  British 
troops  to  face  225,000  more  or  less  disaffected  sepoys. 
From  England  upwards  of  30,000  soldiers  were  sent ; 
from  Bombay,  Ceylon,  and  Madras  troops  were 
summoned,  while  Lord  Elgin  hastened  to  land  the 
force  destined  for  the  China  war.  Amid  the  clamour 
of  impetuous  counsel,  and  hasty  cries  for  indiscriminate 
vengeance  against  the  whole  native  race,  Lord  Canning 
stood  calm  and  resolute.  Well  was  it  for  England 
that  in  the  solemn  hour  when  her  foster-children  went 
forth  and  proclaimed  that  they  were  not  of  her  kith 
and  kin,  she  found  one  man  strong  enough  to  stand 
forth  and  proclaim,  “ I will  not  govern  in  anger.  . . . 
I will  never  allow  an  angry  and  undiscriminating  act 
or  word  to  proceed  from  the  Government  of  India  as 
long  as  I am  responsible  for  it.” 

What  need  to  dim  the  glory  of  the  picture  by 
stories  of  futile  squabblings  of  piqued  volunteers  and 
angered  pressmen,  when  Lord  Canning  faced  India 
mutinous  from  Nagpur  to  Bombay,  from  Simla  to 
Haidarabad  ; when  John  Lawrence,  Edwardes,  and 
Nicholson  held  the  Punjab  safe  in  the  hollow  of  their 
hand  ; when  Henry  Lawrence  did  his  duty  at  Luck- 
now, when  the  names  of  Havelock  and  Outram  will 
ever  be  associated,  by  all  those  who  boast  of  British 
blood,  with  the  memories  of  undying  deeds  ; when 
John  Colvin  uncomplainingly  laid  down  his  head 
on  the  table  in  the  fort  of  Agra  to  die,  wearied 


288 


THE  MUTINY. 


with  many  troubles  and  lapsed  hopes ; when  Colin 
Campbell,  cautious  and  careful,  slowly  and  surely 
rolled  the  mutineers  before  him  ; when  Sir  Hugh 
Rose,  Baron  Strathnairn,  of  Strathnairn  and  Jhansi, 
rode  through  Central  India  with  lightning  speed, 
breaking  down  almost  impenetrable  fortresses  just 
“ as  a pack  of  cards  falls  at  the  touch  of  a hand  ” ! 

Of  ultimate  success  Canning  never  doubted,  though 
day  by  day  came  news  of  fresh  and  overwhelming 
disasters. 

Calcutta  had  at  the  outbreak  of  the  Mutiny 
but  one  English  regiment,  there  being  none  other 
nearer  than  Dinapur,  where  three  sepoy  regiments 
mutinied  on  the  25th  of  July.  At  Arrah,  twenty- 
five  miles  to  the  west  of  Dinapur,  the  Europeans, 
nine  in  number,  with  six  Eurasians,  sent  off  their 
women  and  children,  and  took  refuge  in  a small 
double-storied  billiard-house,  the  front  verandah  of 
which  had  been  bricked  up  without  mortar  or 
cement  by  Vicars  Boyle,  a railway  engineer.  Fifty 
Sikhs  were  sent  to  their  assistance,  the  command 
being  taken  by  Herwald  Wake  the  magistrate.  On 
the  morning  of  the  27th  of  July  the  siege  commenced. 
The  mutineers  of  the  7th,  8th,  and  46th  Native 
Infantry,  -aided  by  levies  under  Kunwar  Singh,  a 
local  landowner,  surrounded  the  billiard-room  and 
commenced  the  assault. 

The  next  day  two  small  cannons  were  brought  to 
play  on  the  weak  walls,  mines  were  sunk,  fires  lighted 
and  bags  of  chillies  thrown  on  them  in  the  hope  that 
the  wind  would  carry  the  suffocating  smoke  to  the 
garrison  and  force  them  out ; still  the  little  band  held 


THE  DEFENCE  OF  AREAH. 


289 


out,  making  sorties  every  now  and  again  to  drive 
back  their  assailants  or  destroy  the  mines,  while  those 
inside  the  fort  remained  busy  digging  a well  for  water 
or  casting  bullets. 

On  the  night  of  the  29th,  415  British  soldiers 
and  Sikhs,  under  Captain  Dunbar,  hurried  to  the 
rescue  from  Dinapur.  They  fell  into  an  ambuscade, 
were  driven  back  with  fearful  slaughter,  and  only  fifty 
men  and  three  officers  escaped  to  sail  down  the  river 
and  carry  the  news  of  the  disaster  to  the  weeping 
women  and  despairing  garrison  at  Dinapur. 

Wake  and  Boyle  held  out  in  their  bungalow  against 
3,000  native  mutineers  until  the  2nd  of  August,  when 
Major  Vincent  Eyre  of  the  Bengal  Artillery,  on  his 
way  from  Calcutta  to  Allahabad,  turned  aside  with 
three  guns,  154  men  of  the  5th  Fusiliers,  18  volun- 
teers and  others — in  all  320  men — drove  the  3,000 
mutineers  from  before  Arrah  at  the  point  of  the 
bayonet,  and  relieved  the  heroic  garrison. 

At  Benares,  the  Holy  City  of  Pilgrimage  for  all 
Hindus,  whose  very  ground  is  counted  so  sacred  that 
even  an  outcast  foreigner  dying  within  ten  miles  of 
its  centre  is  deemed  worthy  of  a future  home  in  the 
abode  of  the  gods,  the  garrison  of  three  sepoy  regi- 
ments, in  the  absence  of  any  European  soldiers, 
mutinied  ; disorder  and  wild  excitement  spread 
among  the  fanatic  inhabitants  of  the  city  until,  on 
the  3rd  of  June,  Colonel  Neill,  hurried  up  from 
Madras  with  his  “ Lambs,”  the  1st  Madras  Fusiliers, 
swept  out  the  rebels  and  kept  the  city  quiet,  meting 
out  to  the  guilty  a stern  and  unrelenting  vengeance. 

Furtner  on  at  Allahabad,  at  the  junction  of  the 


20 


290 


THE  MUTINY. 


Ganges  and  Jumna,  809  miles  from  Calcutta  by  river, 
and  503  miles  by  road,  where  there  were  again  no 
European  soldiers,  the  sepoys  had  broken  out  and 
murdered  fourteen  of  their  officers.  Lieutenant 
Brasyer,  with  65  European  invalid  artillery,  a small 
body  of  Sikhs  and  100  European  volunteers  stubbornly 
held  the  fort  until  Neill  and  40  of  his  “ Lambs  ” came 
up  from  Benares,  seven  of  whom  fell  dead  on  the  road 
as  they  staggered  on  beneath  the  blazing  rays  of  a 
June  sun.  Allahabad  was  saved,  the  mutineers 
punished  with  terrible  severity,  peace  restored,  and 
Neill  left  free  to  gather  in  supplies  and  turn  his 
attention  to  his  beloved  fusiliers  who  were  dying  of 
sunstroke,  cholera,  and  drink. 

To  advance  further  was  impossible  ; reinforcements 
were  needed,  bullocks  and  native  followers  could  not 
be  obtained.  At  Cawnpur,  125  miles  higher  up  the 
river  on  the  south  of  the  Ganges,  forty-two  miles  south- 
west of  Lucknow,  Major-General  Sir  Hugh  Wheeler, 
seventy-five  years  of  age,  fifty  of  which  had  been 
spent  in  service  in  India,  was  in  charge  with  three 
sepoy  regiments  and  but  sixty  European  artillerymen. 

Nana  Sahib,  the  adopted  son  of  the  last  Peshwa  of 
the  Marathas,  resided  a few  miles  away  on  his  estate 
at  Bithur,  his  heart  full  of  hatred  against  the  English, 
who  had  refused  to  continue  to  him  the  pension  held 
to  have  lapsed  on  the  death  of  his  adoptive  father. 

To  the  English  officers  at  Cawnpur  Nana  Sahib 
was  well  known — they  had  visited  him,  dined,  hunted, 
driven,  and  played  billiards  with  him  ; all  were  assured 
of  his  friendly  loyalty. 

When  at  length  the  bitter  truth  dawned  on  Sir 


THE  GARRISON  AT  C AWN  PUR.  2QI 

Hugh  Wheeler  that  his  sepoys  were  not  to  be  trusted, 
he  prepared  for  defence.  A mud  wall  four  feet  high 
was  hastily  thrown  up  round  two  thatched  bungalows 
used  as  hospitals,  where  the  garrisoi  determined  to 
entrench  themselves.  The  cantonments  and  magazine 
were  left  unprotected,  and  messages  for  aid  sent  to  Sir 
Henry  Lawrence  at  Lucknow  and  to  Nana  Sahib  at 
Bithur.  Provisions  were  hastily  collected,  gaps  were 
made  in  the  mud  wall  to  receive  ten  guns,  and  by  the 
5th  of  June  the  doomed  garrison  of  465  men,  includ- 
ing 70  invalids,  with  200  women  and  200  children, 
found  themselves  surrounded  by  3,000  mutineers 
commanded  by  Nana  Sahib’s  Commander-in-Chief 
Tantia  Topi.  For  twenty-one  days  the  garrison 
fought  for  life  ; within  the  first  week  all  the  artillery- 
men were  dead  or  disabled.  The  thatched  hospitals, 
where  the  wounded  lay,  were  fired  by  red-hot 
cannon  balls  ; beneath  the  shattered  walls  crouched 
the  women  and  children  ; along  the  broken-down 
entrenchment  the  men  fought  on,  while  from  the 
rebel  camp  the  iron  hail  of  shot  and  shell  ceased  not. 
When  the  mutineers  found  courage  to  charge  over 
the  mud  embankment  they  were  again  and  again 
driven  back  by  the  heroic  band  now  weakened  by 
exposure,  hunger,  and  thirst.  Round  the  only  well 
the  bullets  flew,  and  many  a brave  soul  fell  when 
taking  his  turn  in  drawing  water. 

From  Havelock  at  Lucknow  came  no  help,  Neill 
was  powerless  at  Allahabad.  The  men  at  Cawnpur 
could  have  fought  their  way  through  the  surrounding 
sepoys,  but  then  they  would  have  had  to  leave  the 
women  and  children  behind.  On  the  27th  of  June 


2Q2 


THE  MUTINY. 


the  despairing  garrison  entered  into  a treaty  with 
Nana  Sahib,  who  agreed  to  let  them  march  out  with 
their  arms  and  sixty  rounds  of  ammunition  to  each 
man,  and  promised  them  safe  conduct  down  the  river 
to  Allahabad.  In  the  early  morning  of  the  27th  of 
June  the  wounded  men  and  wearied  women  were 
carried  to  the  boats  drawn  up  at  the  Sati  Chaura  ghat 
on  the  banks  of  the  Ganges,  one  mile  to  the  north- 
west of  the  entrenchments,  where  the  craven  coward 
Tantia  Topi  had  concealed  sepoys  and  guns  along  the 
river-banks,  with  orders  to  open  fire  on  the  men, 
women,  and  children  the)'’  could  not  conquer  and 
feared  to  face. 

When  the  unsuspecting  victims  were  huddled  to- 
gether in  the  leaf-thatched  native  boats,  deeming 
they  had  at  length  escaped  from  the  horrors  that  had 
for  so  long  crowded  round  them,  a bugle  sound  from 
the  banks  gave  the  signal  for  attack. 

The  straw-thatched  roofs  of  the  boats,  amid  which 
burning  embers  had  been  cunningly  concealed,  were 
soon  in  flames ; the  native  oarsmen  fled,  and  all 
efforts  to  shove  the  heavy  budgerows  from  the  bank 
were  found  unavailing.  The  guns  poured  forth  a 
withering  storm  of  grape,  many  were  shot,  many 
perished  amid  the  flames,  many  were  cut  to  pieces 
by  the  riverside.  Those  who  survived  were  brought 
back  to  Nana  Sahib  at  Cawnpur,  two  officers, 
Mowbray-Thomson  and  Delafosse,  with  two  privates, 
Murphy  and  Sullivan,  alone  escaped,  after  many 
weird  adventures  by  swimming  six  miles  down  the 
river  to  Oudh.  Of  the  survivors  brought  to  Nana 
Sahib  the  men  were  instantly  shot,  and,  on  the 


THE  MEMORIAL  WELL  AT  CAWXPUR. 


-94 


THE  MUTEX  Y. 


approach  of  Havelock,  the  women  were  massacred 
— a slaughter  afterwards  terribly  avenged  by  the 
ungovernable  wrath  of  Neill. 

Far  away,  amid  the  burning  plains  of  India,  the 
sad  Memorial  over  the  Cawnpur  well  marks  the 
spot  where  the  dead  and  dying  were  hastily  buried 
together. 

From  a similar  fate  the  garrison  at  Lucknow, 
forty-two  miles  away  across  the  river  Ganges,  were 
saved  by  the  forethought  of  Henry  Lawrence.  Driven 
back  by  the  mutinous  sepoys  from  Chinhat,  where 
he  had  advanced  to  meet  them,  Lawrence  retreated 
to  the  defences  he  had  raised  round  the  Residency. 
By  the  1st  of  July  upwards  of  60,000  rebels  surged 
round  his  entrenchments,  defended  by  a scattered 
force  of  927  Europeans  and  665  faithful  sepoys. 

All  that  was  possible  to  be  done  in  the  way  of 
storing  provisions  and  ammunition  was  done  by 
Lawrence,  but  ere  the  siege  had  well  commenced, 
a shell  passed  through  the  room  where  he  lay,  and 
wounded  him  mortally.  Within  two  days  he  died, 
his  sole  wish  being  that  no  epitaph  should  be  written 
above  his  grave  save  that  which  told  that  Henry 
Lawrence  had  “ tried  to  do  his  duty.” 

The  garrison  under  Colonel  Inglis,  of  the  32nd 
Regiment,  held  on  bravely  against  the  mutinous 
sepoys  and  the  few  rebellious  Talukdars  who  had 
brought  their  followers  to  join  in  the  struggle. 

From  Calcutta  Canning  hurried  up  troops  to  the 
relief  of  Lucknow,  the  command  being  entrusted  to 
the  soldier-saint,  Henry  Havelock.  Of  a race  not  yet 
extinct,  Havelock  knew  no  fear  of  man,  yet  in  his 


HA  VELOCK'S  SAINTS'' 


295 


dying  words  to  Outram,  the  Bayard  of  India,  can 
still  be  heard  the  weird,  solemn  echo  from  the  limits 
of  man’s  tether  : “ I have  for  forty  years  so  ruled  my 
life  that  when  death  comes  I might  face  it  without 
fear.”  Stern,  serious,  and  reserved,  he  had  early  in 
life  joined  the  Baptists,  his  wife  being  daughter  of  the 
famous  Serampur  missionary,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Marshman. 
His  soldiers  whom  he  not  only  sternly  disciplined 
but  earnestly  prayed  with,  were  well  known  in  those 
days  as  “ Havelock’s  Saints,”  and,  though  sneered  at 
for  their  piety,  were  wondered  at  for  their  unswerving 
steadiness  and  cool  courage.  Sir  H.  Harding,  who 
had  watched  the  deep  earnestness  and  unfaltering 
course  of  Havelock’s  life,  took  full  measure  of  the 
hero  when  he  declared  that,  “ if  ever  India  should 
be  in  danger,  the  Government  have  only  to  put 
Havelock  at  the  head  of  an  army  and  it  will  be 
saved.” 

Many  a fight  had  Havelock  fought  ; at  Khurd 
Kdbul,  Jalaldbad,  Maharajpur,  Mudkl,  Firozshdh, 
and  Sobraon,  to  find  himself  a Colonel  in  1854,  after 
forty-two  years’  service,  and  a Major-General  in  1857 
at  the  age  of  sixty-two,  with  the  one  ambition  that 
had  ever  fired  his  soul — the  ambition  of  command- 
ing an  army  in  the  field — unattained.  There  was 
no  campaign  in  the  world’s  history  the  full  details  of 
which  he  had  not  mastered,  and  the  leading  move- 
ments of  which  he  had  not  panted  to  put  in 
practice. 

Hurrying  from  the  war  in  China  he  landed  at 
Calcutta  on  the  17th  of  June,  and  was  introduced  to 
the  Governor-General  by  Sir  Patrick  Grant  the  new 


296 


THE  MUTINY. 


Commander-in-Chief  who  had  travelled  with  him 
from  Madras,  as  the  man  who  was  to  save  the 
garrison  at  Cawnpur,  and  Sir  Henry  Lawrence  at 
Lucknow.  By  the  time  Havelock  reached  Allahabad 
on  the  30th  of  June,  the  garrison  at  Cawnpur  had 
fallen  ; but,  not  knowing  the  sad  news,  the  relieving 
force,  on  the  7th  of  July,  commenced  their  memor- 
able march  for  the  relief  of  Cawnpur  and  Lucknow. 
Havelock  was  at  the  head  of  some  1,500  Europeans 
and  a little  band  of  volunteer  cavalry  under  Captain 
Barrow,  Major  Renaud  having  started  beforehand, 
on  the  30th  of  June,  with  two  guns,  400  men  of  the 
Madras  Fusiliers  and  84th  Regiment,  with  300  Sikhs. 
As  the  small  army  strode  on  to  meet  death  from  the 
foe,  from  sunstroke,  cholera,  and  disease — for  but  250 
of  them  crossed  the  Ganges  for  Lucknow — the  news 
was  sent  back  from  Renaud’s  advance  column  that 
Cawnpur  had  fallen. 

There  were  men  in  the  relieving  force  who  knew 
what  it  was  to  fight — men  of  Neill’s  God-forgotten 
“ Lambs  ” ; men  of  the  78th,  the  Ross-shire  Buffs, 
who  would  listen  in  stern  silence  to  the  long-spun 
heroic  appeals  of  Havelock,  but  who  swore  in  wild 
rage  to  take  a terrible  revenge  on  the  murderers  of 
the  women  and  children  at  Cawnpur  ; men  of  the  84th 
who  had  served  with  Wellington,  and  100  of  whose 
number  were  at  Cawnpur  and  Lucknow  ; men  of  the 
64th  whom  Havelock  had  commanded  in  Persia  ; 
Brasyer’s  Sikhs  and  Maude’s  artillery  who,  when  the 
staggering  bullocks  broke  down,  dragged  their  guns 
themselves  to  the  front.  There  was  the  plucky  band 
of  twenty  badly-mounted  volunteers  under  Captain 


neill’s  “ lambs. 


297 


Barrow,  who  waited  not  for  the  order  to  charge,  but 
rode  straight  through  the  sepoys  amid  the  cheers  of 
Havelock  and  his  regulars.  Cholera  moved  among 
them,  the  sun  pitilessly  slew  them  ; still  they  fought 
on.  On  the  13th  of  July,  at  Fatehpur,  they  won  for 
Havelock  his  first  battle,  scattered  the  sepoys  in  four 
hours’  fight,  and  captured  eleven  guns  ; on  the  1 5th 
they  rushed  the  sepoy  entrenchments,  but  Renaud  fell, 
to  fight  no  more  ; the  same  afternoon  they  crossed 
the  bridge  over  the  Pandu  Nadi',  and  charged  into  the 
midst  of  the  rebel  gunners,  for  nothing  could  stay 
them.  Though  the  garrison  at  Cawnpur  was  now 
known  to  have  been  massacred,  the  news  had  come 
that  the  women  and  children  were  alive,  and,  with 
Havelock,  the  soldiers  cried,  “ With  God’s  help  we 
shall  save  them,  or  every  man  of  us  die  in  the 
attempt.” 

Beyond  Maharajpur  Nana  Sahib  came  out  with 
eight  guns  and  5,000  of  his  troops,  and  arranged  his 
sepoys  in  a crescent  one  mile  and  a quarter  across 
the  road  to  Cawnpur,  where  he  bid  defiance  to 
Barrow’s  20  gentlemen  volunteers,  1,100  infantry, 
and  300  Sikhs.  While  the  Fusiliers  and  Barrow’s 
handful  of  cavalry  drew  the  fire  of  the  enemy’s 
centre,  the  left  was  rolled  in  by  the  Ross-shire  Buffs, 
who  charged  down  in  slow,  swinging  run  on  the 
guns,  and  hurled  the  rebel  sepoys  before  them, 
pausing  only  for  a moment  to  cheer  the  gentlemen 
volunteers  as  they  dashed  down  the  Trunk  Road 
into  the  midst  of  the  enemy’s  sowars. 

The  weary,  sunstricken  soldiers  had  to  press  on, 
for  in  the  distance  the  mutineers  had  rallied,  and 


298 


THE  MUTINY. 


Nana  S£hib  rode  in  front  of  them  on  an  elephant. 
The  daring  band  of  Englishmen,  hardly  able  to 
carry  the  weight  of  their  muskets,  had  to  pause 
and  crouch  on  the  ground  while  over  their  heads 
the  cannon  balls  came  hissing.  The  captured  guns 
had  been  left  behind,  and  Maude’s  battery  could 
no  longer  advance.  “ Rise  up,”  cried  Havelock,  “ the 
longer  you  look  at  it,  the  less  you  will  like  it  ! ” 
The  64th  rushed  forward,  led  by  Major  Stirling  and 
headed  by  Lieutenant  Havelock,  the  General’s  son 
and  aide-de-camp,  for  which  he  got  the  Victoria 
Cross  ; in  the  rear  the  ground  was  strewn  with 
wounded,  and  the  enemy  broke  in  total  rout. 
Nan£  Sahib  galloped  off  in  haste,  for  he  knew  the 
hated  Feringhi  soldiers  who  had  so  wildly  fought 
their  way  from  Allahabdd  were  hurrying  to  view, 
with  maledictions  against  his  name,  the  well  at 
Cawnpur,  where  the  women  and  children  lay  asleep. 
Cawnpur  was  gained  ; the  British  soldiers  wandered 
over  the  entrenchments,  wondering  how  the  gar- 
rison had  held  out,  and  how  frail  women  had  so 
heroically  borne  their  part  in  the  unequal  conflict. 

In  the  well  of  Cawnpur  lay  the  uncovered  remains 
of  1 18  women  and  92  children,  brutally  murdered. 

The  wrath  of  General  Neill  was  terrible  and  not  to 
be  stayed,  for,  as  he  wrote,  “ My  object  was  to  inflict 
a fearful  punishment  for  a revolting,  cowardly,  and 
barbarous  deed,  and  to  strike  terror  into  the  rebels. 
No  one  who  has  witnessed  the  scenes  of  murder, 
mutilation,  and  massacre  can  ever  listen  to  the  word 
‘ mercy  ’ as  applied  to  these  fiends.” 

Still  the  task  was  not  finished  ; news  came  from 


ADVANCE  TO  LUCKNOW. 


2C9 


Lucknow  that  Sir  Henry  Lawrence  was  dead,  and 
that  in  overwhelming  numbers  the  rebels  swarmed 
around  the  Residency. 

The  Ganges  rolled  between  and  had  to  be  bridged  ; 
beyond,  the  rice-fields  were  flooded,  the  rain  fell  in 
torrents.  Yet  Havelock  and  his  force,  now  1,500 
strong,  of  whom  1,200  were  Europeans,  twelve 
small  guns,  and  two  troops  of  mounted  infantry, 
set  forth  on  the  20th  of  July  for  the  relief  of 
Lucknow — a seemingly  hopeless  task.  By  the  time 
that  the  advanced  Oudh  sepoys  were  driven  back 
from  Unao,  nine  miles  out,  and  again  from  Bashi- 
ratganj,  six  miles  further  on,  the  gallant  band 
had  lost  one-sixth  of  its  European  force,  the  enemy 
was  still  in  front,  Lucknow  was  surrounded  with 
rebels,  and  cholera  and  dysentery  were  mowing  down 
Havelock’s  troops.  If  any  further  advance  took 
place  it  was  certain  that  not  a man  would  have 
lived  to  reach  the  Bailey  Guard  Gate  at  Lucknow. 
So  the  gallant  band  had  to  sullenly  and  sadly 
move  back  to  Cawnpur.  On  the  4th  of  August 
the  attempt  was  again  essayed,  but  to  fail  ; again 
on  the  nth  of  August  a final  struggle  was  made, 
the  enemy  beaten  back  a third  time  from  Bashi- 
ratganj,  and  Havelock  had  to  recognise  the  im- 
practicability of  the  task  he  had  undertaken. 

One  more  fight  had  to  be  fought  by  the  wearied 
troops,  who,  on  the  16th  of  August,  advanced  to 
Bithur,  where  they  gained  a brilliant  victory  over 
4,000  rallied  sepoys  of  Nand  Sahib.  In  the  midst  of 
all  Havelock’s  struggles  the  bitter  news  came  that  his 
command  had  passed  to  Major-General  Sir  James 


300 


THE  MUTINY. 


Outram,  to  whom  the  duty  of  relieving  Lucknow 
was  now  entrusted  by  right  of  seniority. 

Outram,  the  Bayard  of  India,  was  not  the  man  to 
fear  to  act  as  his  chivalrous  nature  prompted  him. 
On  reaching  Cawnpur  on  the  13th  of  September,  he 
penned  his  famous  order  in  which  he  waived  his 
right  to  relieve  the  beleaguered  garrison  : “ The 
Major-General,  therefore,  in  gratitude  for,  and  ad- 
miration of  the  brilliant  deed  of  arms  achieved  by 
Brigadier-General  Havelock  and  his  gallant  troops, 
will  cheerfully  waive  his  rank  in  favour  of  that 
Officer  on  this  occasion,  and  will  accompany  the  force 
to  Lucknow  in  his  Civil  capacity  as  Chief  Com- 
missioner of  Oudh,  tendering  his  Military  Services  to 
Brigadier-General  Havelock  as  a volunteer.  On  the 
relief  of  Lucknow  the  Major-General  will  resume  his 
position  at  the  Head  of  the  Forces.” 

By  the  19th  of  September  Havelock  rode  out  at 
the  head  of  a well-equipped  force  of  2,388  Euro- 
pean infantry,  over  100  volunteer  horsemen  under 
Barrow,  282  artillery  under  Maude,  Olpherts,  and 
Eyre,  with  Major  Cooper  of  the  Bengal  Artillery  in 
command,  341  Sikh  infantry,  and  59  native  cavalry. 
Outram  showed  his  profound  contempt  for  the 
mutineers  by  never  drawing  his  sword  during  the 
campaign,  trusting  only  to  his  gold-headed  malacca 
cane,  with  which  he  dealt  sounding  blows  on  the 
backs  of  the  flying  sepoys. 

Before  the  first  day’s  march  had  ended  the  rebels 
were  driven  right  through  Mangalwar,  past  Bashirat- 
ganj,  and  by  the  end  of  the  second  day  the  booming 
of  cannon  from  Lucknow  could  be  heard. 


“ HOLD  ON  TO  PESHAWAR .”  30I 

By  the  23rd  the  gardens  of  the  large  square  en- 
closure, known  as  the  Alambagh,  were  in  sight.  In 
front  stretched  the  long  line  of  mutineers.  While 
Olpherts  and  Eyre  drove  in  the  enemy’s  centre  and 
left,  the  infantry  captured  the  Alambagh,  and  chased 
the  sepoys  across  the  Charbagh  Bridge  spanning  the 
canal,  two  miles  beyond  which  lay  Lucknow.  When 
the  long  day’s  work  was  at  last  over  the  glad  news 
reached  the  wearied  soldiers  that  Delhi  had  fallen. 

From  the  13th  of  May,  when  Captain  Henry  Daly 
rode  in  from  Mardan,  having  covered  580  miles  in 
twenty-two  marches,  at  the  head  of  800  Guerilla 
guides,  troops  had  poured  towards  the  ridge  at  Delhi, 
until  by  August  there  were  there  assembled  8,748 
men,  of  whom  3,317  were  Europeans. 

From  Peshawar  John  Lawrence  had  sent  300 
veteran  Sikh  artillerymen,  1,200  hastily  raised  Sikh 
sappers  and  miners,  he  even  hesitated  if  he  should 
not  hand  Peshawar  over  to  the  Afghan  monarch, 
Dost  Muhammad,  and  send  all  his  regular  troops 
to  Delhi,  depending  on  7,000  faithful  levies  of  the 
Rajas  of  Jind  and  Nabha  and  the  Maharaja  of 
Patiala,  aided  by  1,000  Sikhs,  to  hold  the  Punjab. 
“Tell  them,”  wrote  Edwardes  in  hasty  expostulation, 
“ they  can  have  no  more  men  from  the  Punjab.” 
“Give  up  everything,”  wrote  Nicholson,  “ but  Pesha- 
war, Lahore,  and  Multan.”  “ Hold  on  to  Peshawar 
to  the  last,”  Canning  answered  from  Calcutta 

Lawrence  held  on  to  the  Punjab,  but  he  deter- 
mined to  play  his  last  stake.  Leaving  himself  but 
4,000  European  troops,  he  sent  his  “ Movable 
Column  ” to  the  front,  and  on  the  14th  of  August 


302 


THE  MUTINY. 


Nicholson,  unconquered  swordsman,  terrible  in  his 
wrath,  unrelenting  in  his  vengeance,  held  in  venera- 
tion by  his  troopers,  and  worshipped  as  the  very 
incarnation  of  the  God  of  War  by  the  wild  Sikh 
soldiery,  rode  towards  the  ridge  at  the  head  of  2,500 
men,  all  ready  to  follow  their  leader  up  to  the  very 
gates  of  Delhi. 

On  the  4th  of  September  siege  guns,  waggons,  and 
ammunition  enough  to  grind  “Delhi  to  powder,”  were 
carried  down  by  sixteen  elephants  from  Firozpur. 

On  September  6th  3,300  effective  British  troops, 
5,400  sepoys,  and  2,500  soldiers  sent  by  loyal  allies, 
waited  before  Delhi,  there  being  in  hospital  over  3,000 
sick  and  wounded.  By  the  1 3th  the  city  walls  were 
breached,  and  before  daybreak  of  the  14th  of  Sep- 
tember four  columns  marched  to  the  assault. 

From  the  third  column  a brave  band  of  heroes  crept 
forth  to  hang  the  powder-bags  on  the  spikes  of  the 
Kashmir  Gate  to  blow  it  to  pieces.  Sergeant  Car- 
michael laid  the  train  and  fell  dead  ; Lieutenant 
Salkeld,  R.E.,  seized  the  match,  and  then  fell,  shot 
through  the  arm  and  leg  ; Corporal  Burgess  fell  mor- 
tally wounded  as  he  fired  the  train ; Lieutenant  Home, 
R.E.,  and  Bugler  Hawthorne  then  sounded  three 
times  the  advance,  and  over  the  rebels  who  had  been 
killed  by  the  explosion  the  column  charged  through 
the  gateway  and  entered  the  city.  The  second 
column  entered  by  the  water  bastion,  while  the  first 
column,  led  by  Nicholson,  swarmed  up  the  breach 
near  the  main  guard.  As  Nicholson’s  tall  form 
strode  down  the  narrow  streets  waving  his  sword  to 
encourage  his  men  forward  against  a gun  that  swept 


FALL  OF  DELHI. 


303 


the  road,  the  hero  fell,  wounded  to  death.  With 
Nicholson  60  officers  and  1,085  men  were  slain  in  the 
capture  of  the  city,  the  siege  itself,  which  lasted  from 
the  30th  of  May  to  the  20th  of  September,  having 
cost  the  lives  of  2,151  Europeans  and  1,686  natives, 
who  fell  fighting  on  our  side. 

Bahadur  Shah,  the  last  Emperor  of  the  Mughals, 
fled  for  refuge  to  the  tomb  of  his  ancestor,  Humayun, 
some  six  miles  from  Delhi.  Thither  rode  Hodson,  of 
Hodson’s  Horse,  born  leader  of  wayward  spirits,  un- 
hesitating in  his  lofty  disdain  and  cold  contempt  of 
official  routine  and  halting  prudence.  He  seized  the 
Emperor  from  amid  his  wavering  attendants,  brought 
him  back  to  Delhi,  and  delivered  him  up  to  justice. 
Again  he  rode  out  to  the  tomb  and  captured  the 
three  princes,  but  as  he  led  them  towards  Delhi  he 
shot  them  dead  on  the  public  road,  alleging  that 
he  feared  the  crowd  might  attempt  a rescue. 

The  Emperor  was  tried  for  rebellion,  treason,  and 
murder,  and  deported  a State  prisoner  to  Rangoon, 
where  he  died  on  the  7th  of  November,  1862,  being 
buried  in  the  night-time  near  his  bungalow,  so  that 
none  might  know  the  resting-place  of  the  last  of  the 
great  Mughal  Emperors. 

Outram  and  Havelock  were,  on  the  23rd  of  Sep- 
tember, before  the  Alambagh,  when  the  news  reached 
them  of  the  fall  of  Delhi.  There  the  reserve  am- 
munition, stores  and  baggage,  wounded  and  sick  of 
the  relieving  force  were  left  behind,  under  a guard 
of  European  troops,  the  main  body  pressing  on  for 
their  fatal  march,  on  the  25th  of  September,  for  the 
Relief  of  Lucknow. 


304 


THE  MUTINY. 


In  an  attack  on  the  Yellow  House  by  the  Char- 
bagh  Bridge,  Outram  was  shot  through  the  arm,  and 
Maude  lost  his  best  artillerymen.  Here  the  first 
serious  check  came,  for  the  bridge  was  swept  by  six 
guns  strongly  posted  and  entrenched.  From  the 
neighbouring  houses  by  the  canal-sides  the  mutineers 
kept  up  a heavy  fire  of  musketry.  Maude’s  two  guns, 
now  worked  by  volunteer  artillerymen,  opened  fire 
across  the  bridge  at  1 50  yards’  range,  and  here 
some  of  his  gunners  were  blown  to  pieces,  the  fire 
from  their  own  guns  having  exploded  their  powder 
pouches.  At  all  costs  the  bridge  had  to  be  carried. 
The  Madras  Fusiliers  and  84th  were  eager  to  charge. 
Young  Havelock,  Arnold,  and  Lieutenant-Colonel 
Fraser  Tytler  advanced  amid  a storm  of  grape 
from  the  heavy  guns  ; Arnold  fell  shot  through  both 
thighs,  Tytler  and  his  horse  were  seen  struggling 
on  the  ground,  and  Havelock  alone  was  left  to 
cheer  on  the  Fusiliers  as  they  sprang  forward  to 
clear  the  way.  The  bridge  taken,  the  78th  High- 
landers held  it  while  the  army  of  relief  crossed 
by  the  right  bank  of  the  canal,  and  made  their  way 
towards  the  Secundra  Bagh  under  a heavy  fire 
from  the  Muti  Masjid  and  the  Mess  House,  until 
they  found  themselves  face  to  face  with  a battery 
posted  in  front  of  the  Kaisarbagh  or  King’s  Palace. 
As  the  main  body  hesitated,  the  78th,  who  had  left 
the  bridge  and  marched  by  a short  route  to  the 
left  through  the  crowded  streets,  suddenly  dashed 
forward  on  the  flank  of  the  battery,  spiked  the  guns 
and  cut  down  the  rebel  gunners.  In  front  of  the 
now  combined  force  lay  the  narrow  streets  leading 


RELIEF  OF  LUCKNOW. 


305 


to  the  Bailey  Guard  of  the  Residency.  On  each 
side  the  high  houses  were  full  of  sepoys  to  the  house- 
tops, the  cross-alleys  were  crowded  with  desperate 
men. 

Outram  vehemently  protested  against  the  fatal 
march  almost  into  the  valley  of  death  until  at  length 
he  turned  away  and  cried  out  to  Havelock  to  lead 
on  the  troops  “ in  God’s  name.” 

From  the  housetops,  from  the  windows,  from  the 
cross-streets,  there  poured  an  unrelenting  fire  on  the 
devoted  band,  who  could  only  stay  now  and  then  to 
send  a volley  through  the  side-alleys  held  by  masses 
of  sepoys  and  infuriated  women. 

Outram,  on  his  big  Australian  horse,  was  the  first 
to  scramble  through  a breach  on  the  left  of  the 
Bailey  Guard,  and  in  a moment  “ big,  rough-bearded 
soldiers,”  writes  a lady,  one  of  the  survivors  of  the 
garrison,  “ were  seizing  the  little  children  out  of  our 
arms,  kissing  them  with  tears  rolling  down  their 
cheeks,  and  thanking  God  that  they  had  come  in 
time  to  save  them  from  the  fate  of  those  at  Cawnpur.” 
To  the  besieged  Havelock  brought  no  supplies,  his 
food  and  baggage  had  been  left  at  the  xAlambdgh. 
The  provisions  in  the  Residency  were,  however,  found 
to  be  much  larger  than  had  been  reported.  The 
defences  were  extended,  and  thereby  necessarily 
weakened,  being  more  exposed  to  the  mining  opera- 
tions. The  garrison  was  reinforced  but  not  relieved. 
The  Relief  of  Lucknow  had  yet  to  come — a relief  to 
be  effected  by  Colin  Campbell. 

Sir  Colin  Campbell — Old  Khabarder,  or  Old  Take- 
Care,  as  his  soldiers  loved  to  call  him — was  on 


21 


SIR  COLIN  CAMPBELL,  LORD  CLYDE, 


SIP  COLIN  CAMPBELL. 


307 


the  nth  of  July,  1857,  asked  when  he  could  start 
from  England  to  take  the  chief  command  in  India. 
“ To-morrow,”  he  curtly  replied.  He  was  then  sixty- 
five  years  of  age.  He  had  seen  sendee  in  the 
American  War  of  1842,  in  the  second  Sikh  war  of 
1848-9,  he  had  commanded  the  Highland  Brigade  in 
the  Crimea,  at  Alma,  and  Balaklava.  On  the  17th 
of  August,  1857,  he  landed  at  Calcutta  to  take  chief 
command.  “ No  advance  will  take  place  without  me,” 
he  wrote  to  Outram  on  the  28th  of  September,  “ even 
if  it  be  made  with  a single  regiment,”  and  to  the 
Duke  of  Cambridge  he  afterwards  added,  “ The  des- 
perate street-fighting  so  gallantly  conducted  by  Sir 
James  Outram  and  General  Havelock  — the  only 
course  open  to  them — must,  if  possible,  be  avoided  in 
future.”  It  was  not,  however,  until  the  3rd  of  Novem- 
ber that  the  Commander-in-Chief  reached  Cawnpur, 
and  placed  himself  at  the  head  of  a small  army  of 

5.000  men  and  30  guns.  Nearly  2,500  of  these  were 
composed  of  Colonel  Greathed’s  column,  which  had 
marched  from  Delhi  and  driven  7,000  of  Sindhia’s 
rebellious  troops  from  before  Agra.  At  Cawnpur  he 
left  General  Windham  with  500  English  troops  and 
550  native  infantry  and  gunners  to  hold  the  canton- 
ments and  bridge  of  boats  across  the  Ganges  and  to 
watch  the  rebel  force  from  Gwalior  and  Kalpi. 

On  the  10th  of  November  Colin  Campbell  was 
met  by  Lucknow  Kavanagh,  who  nobly  won  the 
Victoria  Cross  by  passing  from  the  Residency  dis- 
guised as  a native  and  making  his  way  through 

60.000  rebels,  massed  in  and  around  the  city,  to 
carry  plans  and  news  from  Outram  to  the  Com- 


3°8 


THE  MUTINY. 


mander-in-Chief.  Instead  of  advancing  straight 

o o 

through  Lucknow  Sir  Colin  Campbell  fought  his 
way  by  the  suburbs,  captured  the  Dilkusha,  or  Palace 
of  Heart’s  Delight,  and  the  Martiniere  College,  a 
building  erected  by  a French  officer  of  fortune, 
Claude  Martin.  The  Secundra  Bagh,  a square  450 
feet  each  way,  held  by  the  rebels,  was  carried  by  the 
93rd  Highlanders,  the  53rd,  and  4th  Punjdb  Rifles, 
who  slew  2,500  of  the  best  fighting-men  in  Oudh, 
a brigade  of  three  full  regiments. 

The  Shah  Najaf,  a strong  domed  mosque,  with 
thick,  heavy  walls  forty  feet  high,  held  out  against 
the  English  cannonade  for  the  whole  afternoon,  until 
Captain  Peel,  of  the  Shannon , and  his  British  sailors 
came  to  the  rescue,  and  in  the  words  of  the  Com- 
mander-in-Chief’s  despatch  “ the  heavy  guns  were 
within  20  yards  of  the  Shah  Najaf,  where  they 
were  unlimbered  and  poured  in  round  after  round 
against  the  massive  walls  of  the  building,  the  wither- 
ing fire  of  the  Highlanders  covering  the  naval  brigade 
from  great  loss.  But  it  was  an  action  almost  unex- 
ampled in  war.  Captain  Peel  behaved  very  much  as 
if  he  had  been  laying  the  Shannon  alongside  an 
enemy’s  frigate.”  A breach  was  at  length  made, 
but  when  Adrian  Hope  and  fifty  of  his  men  climbed 
in  they  found  the  building  deserted. 

On  the  17th  the  Mess  House,  after  six  hours’ 
fighting,  was  carried  by  a detachment  of  the  53rd 
and  a company  of  the  90th  Foot,  led  by  Captain 
Wolseley,  now  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  British 
army,  the  British  flag  being  placed  on  its  summit  amid 
a shower  of  bullets  by  Lieutenant  Roberts,  now  Field- 


RETREAT  FROM  LUCKNOW. 


309 


Marshal  Lord  Roberts.  The  observatory  and  Pearl 
Palace  were  next  carried,  followed  by  the  historic 
meeting  between  Campbell,  Havelock,  and  Outram. 

The  congratulations  were  soon  damped  by  Sir 
Colin  Campbell’s  order  that  within  twenty-four 
hours  the  garrison  and  army  should  quit  Lucknow 
and  march  back  to  Cawnpur. 

The  wounded  and  sick  were  carried  out  and  by 
the  night  of  the  22nd  of  November,  the  last  man 
had  marched  from  the  entrenchments  at  Lucknow. 
One  officer,  Captain  Waterman,  was  in  the  con- 
fusion left  behind  asleep.  On  waking  up  he  found 
the  well-known  haunts  abandoned  and  silent,  and 
himself  surrounded  by  some  40,000  rebel  sepoys, 
who  were  still  firing  on  the  deserted  posts.  From 
this  strange  scene  of  war  and  silent  desolation  he 
escaped  to  join  the  rear-guard,  half-crazed  from  fear. 
On  the  23rd  of  November  the  Commander-in-Chief 
was  able  to  write,  “ The  movement  of  retreat  of  last 
night  by  which  the  final  rescue  of  the  garrison  was 
effected  was  a model  of  discipline  and  exactness. 
The  consequence  was  that  the  enemy  was  completely 
deceived,  and  the  force  retired  by  a narrow  tortuous 
lane,  the  only  line  of  retreat  open,  in  the  face  of  50,000 
enemies  without  molestation.” 

On  the  morning  of  the  24th  of  November  the  soul 
of  the  noble-minded  Henry  Havelock  passed  away. 
He  died  at  the  Dilkusha  Gardens  at  the  age  of 
sixty-two. 

As  the  soldiers  marched  on  to  Cawnpur  they  buried 
him  in  the  Alambagh  gardens,  where  they  carved 
the  letter  H.  on  a tree  to  mark  his  last  resting-place. 


3io 


THE  MUTINY. 


He  did  not  live  to  receive  the  baronetcy  and  pension 
granted  him,  they  had  to  be  handed  on  to  his  son 
and  widow,  yet  from  all  came  tributes  to  the  memory 
of  the  heroic  soldier-saint. 

Outram  was  left  to  guard  the  Alambdgh ; Colin 
Campbell,  with  the  garrison  he  had  relieved,  marched 
back  to  Cawnpur,  only  to  find  that  in  his  absence 
General  Windham  had  been  defeated  by  Tdntia  Topi, 
and  was  now  surrounded  by  an  army  of  25,000  rebels, 
mostly  mutinous  troops  of  Sindhia  from  Gwalior. 

Sir  Colin  Campbell  at  once  sent  his  sick,  wounded 
and  the  rescued  women  and  children  away  to  Alla- 
hdbdd,  and  then  led  out  his  troops  against  the  army 
surrounding  Cawnpur  under  the  command  of  the 
Ndnd  Sahib,  Tdntia  Topi,  and  Koer  Singh  the  Rdjd 
of  Jagdispur.  The  enemy’s  right  was  driven  in  by 
three  brigades  under  Adrian  Hope,  Walpole,  and 
Inglis,  and  their  artillery  silenced  by  a 24-pounder 
dragged  up  by  Peel’s  sailors.  The  whole  of  the 
Gwalior  contingent  retreated,  being  pursued  and  cut 
up  for  a distance  of  fourteen  miles.  Ndnd  Sdhib 
escaped  to  a ferry  over  the  Ganges,  twenty-five  miles 
above  Cawnpur,  all  his  guns  and  baggage  were 
taken,  and  his  followers  driven  into  the  river,  the 
boats  in  which  they  endeavoured  to  escape  being 
fired  on  and  sunk. 

By  the  middle  of  March,  1858,  Lucknow  was  finally 
recaptured,  but  the  rebels  were  unfortunately  allowed 
to  escape  across  the  Gumti,  to  swarm  for  months 
afterwards  round  Nana  Sdhib  in  Rohilkhand  and 
the  leading  chieftains  in  Oudh,  until  they  were 
driven  over  the  frontier  into  Nepal,  where  they 


SIR  HUGH  ROSE  IN  CENTRAL  INDIA.  3 I I 

perished  miserably  in  the  jungles  or  surrendered  to 
the  overwhelming  forces  that  slowly  closed  in  on 
them  from  all  sides. 

While  Sir  Colin  Campbell,  who  had  been  raised  to 
the  peerage  as  Lord  Clyde,  was  slowly  and  cautiously 
driving  the  rebels  before  him  in  Oudh  and  Rohilk- 
hand,  Sir  Hugh  Rose,  by  his  rapid  marches  in  Central 
India,  carried  out  without  a single  check  a series  of 
operations  which  for  brilliancy,  dash,  and  daring  are 
without  a parallel  in  the  history  of  military  operations 
in  India.  Starting  from  Holkar’s  capital  at  Indore 
where  he  had  restored  order,  he,  early  in  1858,  with 
two  columns  of  4,500  men,  including  four  native 
regiments,  captured  the  forts  of  Rathgarh  and 
Barodia,  and  by  the  3rd  of  February  relieved  the 
garrison  at  Sdgar,  where  a handful  of  Europeans 
had  for  eight  weary  months  desperately  defended 
170  women  and  children  from  the  rebel  sepoys. 

On  the  13th  of  February  he  captured  the  strong 
fort  of  Garhdkota  and  forced  the  pass  of  Mundinpur, 
by  taking  the  enemy’s  defences  in  the  rear,  which 
so  terrified  them  that  they  fled  panic-stricken,  and 
left  clear  the  road  to  Jhinsi,  where,  ten  months  before 
Captain  Skene,  the  Resident,  and  sixty-seven  English 
men,  women,  and  children  had  been  marched  in  re- 
ligious procession  through  the  town  and  slain,  amid 
the  fierce  cries  of  the  fanatic  Muhammadan  priests 

The  fortress,  built  of  solid  granite,  sixteen  to  twenty 
feet  in  length,  on  a steep  precipitous  rock,  was  held 
by  11,000  men,  headed  by  their  fierce  Rani  Ganga 
Bdi,  who  had  sworn  an  undying  vengeance  against 
the  English  rulers  for  having  refused  to  recognise 


312 


THE  MUTINY. 


her  adopted  child  as  heir  to  her  dead  husband’s 
principality. 

For  eight  days  the  bristling  guns  from  the  fort 
answered  back  shot  for  shot  the  besieging  batteries. 
Sir  Hugh  Rose  at  length  determined  to  save  his 
ammunition  and  assault  the  almost  dismantled  fort 
and  city.  Before  the  attack  could  be  delivered  news 
came  that  Tdntia  Topi  had  crossed  the  river  Betwa, 
and  was  marching  at  the  head  of  20,000  troops  to 
the  Rani’s  aid.  Sir  Hugh  Rose  at  once  left  his 
heavy  guns  playing  on  the  city,  and  with  1,500  of 
his  men  marched  to  meet  Tantia  Topi,  who  advanced 
at  the  head  of  his  hosts  confident  of  an  easy  victory. 
Before  the  British  artillery  and  cavalry  the  rebels 
fell  back  dismayed,  the  ground  for  sixteen  miles  was 
strewn  with  abandoned  guns,  stores,  and  ammunition, 
1,500  of  Tantia  Topi’s  troops  fell,  the  rest,  disbanded 
and  broken,  fled  across  the  Betwa  back  towards 
Kalpi.  The  wearied  troops  of  Sir  Hugh  Rose,  some 
of  whom  had  not  for  seventeen  days  and  nights  taken 
off  their  clothes  nor  unbridled  their  horses,  had  to 
turn  back  for  the  attack  on  Jhansi.  After  a desperate 
resistance  the  fort  fell,  and  half  the  garrison  was 
slain,  but  the  brave  Queen  escaped  on  horseback 
with  her  infant  stepson  through  the  outposts  of  the 
British  camp. 

The  forces  of  Tantia  Topi  and  those  of  the  escaped 
Jhansi  Rani  made  a stand  at  Kunch,  whence  they 
were  driven  after  a fight  which  lasted  from  daybreak 
till  nine  at  night  on  the  7th  of  May,  with  a loss  of 
six  hundred  men  and  fifteen  guns,  the  pursuit  being 
maintained  by  the  exhausted  British  troops  at  foot- 


the  rAni  of  jhansi.  3 i 3 

pace.  Under  a terrible  heat,  reaching  iio°  in  the 
shade,  natives  and  Europeans  struggled  on,  man) 
falling  dead  by  the  roadside,  many  in  greater  numbers 
than  those  slain  by  the  enemy  being  carried  back 
delirious. 

Sir  Hugh  Rose,  who  was  himself  three  times 
rendered  insensible  from  sunstroke,  wrote  on  the 
22nd  of  May  after  the  final  attack,  when  the  rebels 
were  driven  out  of  Kalpi,  “ It  was  1 190  in  the  shade, 
and  200  men  out  of  less  than  400  of  the  25th  Native 
Infantry  fell  out  of  the  ranks  stricken  by  the  sun.” 

On  news  of  the  success  of  the  campaign,  Lord 
Canning  at  once  telegraphed  to  Sir  Hugh  Rose, 
“Your  capture  of  Kalpi  has  crowned  a series  of 
brilliant  and  uninterrupted  successes.  I thank  you 
and  your  brave  soldiers  with  all  my  heart.” 

During  the  campaign  Sir  Hugh  Rose  and  his 
force  suffered  so  severely  that  under  medical  advice 
he  was  ordered  to  take  immediate  leave  to  Bombay 
and  send  his  troops  into  cantonments. 

Preparations  had  been  made  for  a cessation  of 
military  operations  when  news  was  received  that 
Sindhia’s  troops  at  Gwalior  had  mutinied  and  placed 
themselves,  their  fort  with  its  arsenal-guns  and 
supplies,  under  the  command  of  Tantia  Topi,  and 
the  Rani  of  Jhansi,  who  now  had  a force  of  some 
18,000  troops  to  oppose  to  the  worn-out  British 
army.  On  the  16th  of  June  Sir  Hugh  Rose,  joined 
by  Brigadier-General  Napier,  drove  the  rebels  from 
the  Morar  cantonments,  while  Brigadier  Smith  cap- 
tured the  heights  to  the  east  of  Gwalior.  In  the 
engagement  the  Jhdnsi  Queen,  wearing  her  usual 


314 


THE  MUTINY. 


manly  costume,  a red  jacket  and  trousers  and  white 
turban,  was  slain  in  a charge  of  the  8th  Hussars, 
the  rebel  army  thus  losing  their  noblest  and  bravest 
leader  who  died  amid  the  universal  mourning  of  her 
people  at  the  early  age  of  twenty. 

By  the  19th  of  June  Gwalior  was  captured  by 
Lieutenants  Rose  and  Waller,  who,  with  a handful 
of  men,  crept  up  the  hillside  and  broke  in  the  gates 
of  the  fort,  Rose  paying  with  his  life  for  the  daring 
enterprise. 

The  Gwalior  mutineers  threw  away  their  arms  and 
ammunition  and  fled  far  away  over  the  country,  pur- 
sued by  General  Napier.  Tdntia  Topi  was  captured 
by  Captain,  afterwards  Sir  Richard,  Meade,  and 
executed  at  Sipri  on  the  1 8th  of  April,  1859;  Ndnd 
Sahib  disappeared  in  the  Nepal  jungles  and  was 
never  heard  of  more,  though  an  occasional  tele- 
gram in  our  daily  papers  still  announces  some 
foolish  story  of  his  reappearance.  The  surrender 
of  the  last  4,000  of  his  followers  to  Brigadier 
Holditch  put  an  end  to  the  final  period  of  the 
Mutiny. 

Peace  once  restored,  the  Government  of  India  passed 
from  the  Company  to  the  Queen,  who,  on  the  1st  of 
November,  1858,  in  her  Proclamation — the  Magna 
Charta  of  the  people  of  India — declared  the  future 
policy  of  British  rule  in  India:  “We  hereby  announce 
to  the  Native  Princes  of  India  that  all  treaties, 
engagements  made  with  them  by  or  under  the 
authority  of  the  Honourable  East  India  Company 
are  by  us  accepted,  and  will  be  scrupulously 
maintained,  and  We  look  for  a like  observance  on 


the  queen's  proclamation.  3 i 5 

their  part.  We  desire  no  extensions  of  Our  present 
territorial  possessions  ; and  while  We  will  permit  no 
aggression  upon  Our  dominions  or  Our  Rights  to  be 
attempted  with  impunity,  We  shall  sanction  no  en- 
croachment on  those  of  others,  We  shall  respect  the 
rights,  dignity,  and  honour  of  Native  Princes  as  Our 
own  ; and  we  desire  that  they — as  well  as  our  own 
subjects — should  enjoy  prosperity,  and  that  social  ad- 
vancement, which  can  only  be  secured  by  internal 
peace  and  good  government.  We  hold  ourselves  bound 
to  the  Natives  of  Our  Indian  territories  by  the  same 
obligations  of  duty,  which  bind  us  to  all  Our  other 
subjects,  and  those  obligations  by  the  Blessing  of 
God,  we  shall  faithfully  and  conscientiously  fulfil. 
Firmly  relying  Ourselves  on  the  truth  of  Christianity 
and  acknowledging  with  gratitude  the  solace  of  re- 
ligion, we  disclaim  alike  the  right  and  the  desire  to 
impose  our  convictions  on  any  of  our  subjects.” 

To  all  those'who  had  remained  loyal  and  rendered 
services,  rewards  in  money  and  land,  honours  and 
decorations,  were  bestowed  with  no  stinting  hand, 
while  to  repentant  Talukdars  of  Oudh  who  were 
guiltless  of  shedding  blood  their  estates  were  returned 
with  an  hereditary  and  permanent  title. 

In  the  sepoy  army  sweeping  changes  were  made. 
At  the  close  of  the  year  preceding  the  Mutiny,  the 
army,  which  consisted  of  six  natives  to  every  Euro- 
pean, was  after  the  Mutiny  reduced  to  the  proportions 
of  two  natives  to  one  European,  and  the  artillery  was 
placed  almost  entirely  in  the  hands  of  Europeans. 

The  Mutiny  left  behind  it  a heavy  burden  on  the 
people  of  India.  The  National  Debt  had  grown  from 


3*6 


THE  MUTINY. 


59J  millions  sterling  to  nearly  89  millions,  and  the 
three  years  of  the  Mutiny  ended  in  a deficit  of  over 
30  millions  sterling — a seriousone\vhen,with  an  income 
of  not  37  millions,  it  was  estimated  that  the  year  i860 
would  end  in  a further  deficit  of  6|  millions.  To 
restore  the  financial  equilibrium  Mr.  Wilson,  the  new 
Finance  Minister,  was  obliged  to  place  an  income-tax 
of  4 per  cent,  on  all  incomes  above  ,£50  a year,  and 
2 per  cent,  on  all  incomes  from  £20  to  £$o,  but  had 
to  relinquish  a proposed  taxation  of  tobacco,  and  a 
license-tax  on  trades  and  professions.  Mr.  Samuel 
Laing,  who  succeeded  Mr.  Wilson,  abolished  the 
income-tax  on  all  incomes  under  ^50  a year,  and 
effected  a reduction  of  35-  millions  on  military 
expenses,  and  half  a million  on  civil  expenditure. 
During  the  period  from  1856  to  1862  the  natural 
growth  in  the  land  revenue,  showed  an  increase  of 
2J  millions  sterling  so  that  Lord  Canning  was  able 
to  declare  in  1862  “that  he  left  India  in  peace  and 
prosperity.” 

Blind,  weak,  and  incapable  as  Lord  Canning’s  de- 
tractors judged  him,  still  the  proudest  boast  of  his 
country  will  ever  be  that  while  hasty  counsel  urged 
him  to  wage  an  almost  justifiable  war  of  retribution, 
he  had  courage  to  declare  that  “ no  taunts  or  sarcasms, 
come  from  what  quarter  they  may,  will  turn  me  from 
the  path  which  I believe  to  be  that  of  my  public 
duty.”  He  had  stood  calm,  proudly  reserved  and 
unmoved  though  the  raging  storm  of  race  hatred 
surged  around  and  almost  threatened  to  sweep  him 
away  in  its  tempestuous  passion.  He  had  risked  his 
reputation  and  sacrificed  his  life  to  carry  out  his  trust 


THE  END. 


31? 

in  the  full  determination  to  deliver  it  again  into  her 
Majesty’s  hands  “without  spot  or  stain  from  any  act 
or  word.”  He  left  India  tired,  wan,  and  broken 
down,  to  receive,  within  a few  months’  time,  the 
news  that  he  was  a dying  man  with  the  weary  cry, 
“ What ! so  soon  ? ” 


XV. 

INDIA  UNDER  THE  CROWN. 

Lord  Elgin  succeeded  Lord  Canning  on  the  12th 
of  March,  1862,  and  died  within  two  years.  The  work 
of  Government  was  carried  on  by  Sir  William  Denison, 
Governor  of  Madras,  until  the  arrival  of  the  new 
Viceroy,  Sir  John  Lawrence,  who  reached  India  on 
the  1 2th  of  January,  1864. 

India  was  in  the  meantime  engaged  in  a disastrous 
frontier  campaign,  which  at  one  time  called  forth  for 
its  suppression  the  whole  available  military  resources 
of  the  Government.  To  the  west  of  the  Indus,  amid 
the  fastnesses  of  the  outlying  spurs  of  the  Hindu  Kush, 
a band  of  fanatic  Muhammadans,  known  as  Wahabi's, 
had  formed  a colony,  whence  they  had  spread  sedi- 
tious exhortations  to  all  true  Muhammadans  to  aid 
with  money,  arms,  and  prayers  in  an  unrelenting  war 
against  unbelievers.  To  their  strongholds  of  Sitana, 
Jadun,  and  Malka  in  the  Mahaban,  or  Mountains  of 
the  Great  Forest,  mutinous  sepoys  from  the  lowlands, 
wild  Pathans  and  fierce  Afn'dis  flocked  in  numbers, 
all  eager  to  join  in  raiding  the  lowland  villages 
and  glad  to  swell  the  band  of  those  whose  lawless 

318 


THE  WAHABfS. 


319 


instincts  were  sanctioned  by  a fanatic  zeal  for  the 
welfare  of  the  Muhammadan  faith.  In  1853,  and 
again  in  1858,  their  fastnesses  had  been  raided  and 
their  abiding-place  at  Sitana  burned  to  the  ground, 
but  still  recruits  from  the  Muhammadan  cities  in  the 
Punjab,  in  Behar  and  Bengal,  flocked  to  the  standard 
of  revolt. 

At  length,  in  October,  1863,  Brigadier-General  Sir 
Neville  Chamberlain,  was  directed  to  march  against 
them  at  the  head  of  7,000  picked  troops.  At  the 
Ambela  Pass  he  was  met  by  a force  of  15,000  fighting 
men  who  had  assembled  to  resent  the  threatened 
invasion  of  their  mountain  homes.  The  British  force 
was  hemmed  in,  and  for  three  weeks  the  camp  could 
only  hold  its  own.  From  all  quarters  new  troops  were 
hurried  forward,  the  pass  was  cleared,  and  by  the  1 5th 
of  December  General  Garvock,  brought  the  tribesmen 
to  terms.  On  the  22nd  of  December  the  Wahabi 
settlement  at  Malka  was  burned,  and  the  expedition 
retired,  having  lost  over  one-tenth  of  its  total  number. 

Three  weeks  after  the  Ambela  campaign  was  ended, 
Sir  John  Lawrence  arrived  in  India,  where  he  ruled 
until  January,  1869,  having,  during  his  long  service 
from  the  time  he  first  landed  on  the  9th  of  February, 
1830,  held  every  post  from  Assistant  to  the  Resident 
at  Delhi  up  to  Viceroy.  A few  days  before  he 
reached  Calcutta  Mr.  Ashley  Eden  had  been  de- 
spatched from  Darjiling  on  a mission  to  the  capital  of 
Bhutan,  a wild,  unsettled  country  lying  amid  the 
Himalayas  to  the  north  of  Assam  and  Bengal,  whence 
the  wild  Buddhist  Tartars  who  inhabited  the  land 
yearly  raided  the  lowland  valleys,  carrying  off  the 


320 


INDIA  UNDER  THE  CROWN. 


cattle  from  the  British  villages.  The  Embassy  and 
its  slender  escort  of  one  hundred  sepoys,  struggled  on 
through  the  snow-clad  mountain  ranges,  their  passage 
opposed  by  the  native  chiefs  who  extorted  bribes  from 
the  envoy  and  delayed  his  progress.  When  Punakha, 
the  winter  capital,  was  reached,  Mr.  Ashley  Eden  was 
subjected  to  many  gross  insults,  and  ultimately  forced, 
under  threats  of  imprisonment,  to  sign  a humiliating 
treaty  whereby  it  was  agreed  that  the  passes  leading 
from  Assam  should  be  surrendered  to  Bhutan.  To 
this  treaty  the  British  envoy  affixed  his  signature, 
taking  care,  however,  to  add  that  he  signed  “ under 
compulsion.”  He  then  escaped  by  night  and  brought 
back  to  India  the  news  of  the  result  of  his  mission. 
The  treaty  was  at  once  repudiated,  and  three  months 
given  to  the  rulers  of  Bhutan  to  send  in  their  sub- 
mission. No  answer  was  received  and  war  was 
declared.  The  forts  commanding  the  passes  from 
Bengal  were  captured  and  occupied,  but  Colonel 
Campbell  and  a garrison  of  five  hundred  men  were 
surprised  while  holding  Diwangiri,  and  though  they 
easily  repelled  the  first  assaults,  their  ammunition  ran 
short  and  the  water  was  cut  off,  so  they  were  obliged 
to  retire,  and  leave  behind  two  guns  and  their  sick  and 
wounded  to  the  care  of  the  enemy.  Brigadier  Henry 
Tombs  hurried  up  with  reinforcements  and  soon 
terminated  the  ignominious  warfare  against  a con- 
temptible and  ignorant  foe.  The  eighteen  dwars,  or 
passes,  leading  from  Bengal  and  Assam,  were  sur- 
rendered by  the  Bhutias  under  promise  of  a yearly 
subsidy,  thus  adding  a tea-growing  district  some  1 80 
miles  long  by  20  to  30  broad  to  British  territory. 


FAMINE. 


321 


Urgent  though  the  necessity  was  of  keeping  the 
land  secure  from  invasion  and  the  peaceful  lowland 
villages  safe  from  pillage  and  the  firebrand,  the  new 
Governor-General  had  to  devise  means  to  meet  a 
nearer  danger  arising  from  the  ravages  of  pestilence 
and  famine.  From  time  immemorial  the  husbandmen 
in  the  rich  river  valleys  of  India  have  ploughed  their 
lands,  sown  their  seed,  and  reaped  the  produce  calmly 
indifferent  to  the  coming  and  going  of  their  foreign 
rulers,  knowing  that  to  all  alike  they  must  pay  tribute. 
War  to  them  is  but  one  of  the  great  evils  flowing  from 
princes  and  kings  whose  rule  must  be  endured,  but 
from  the  two  great  terrors,  arising  from  gods  and 
immortals — pestilence  and  famine — they  fly  in  terror 
or  else  sit  silent  in  their  homes  waiting  for  death. 

In  the  year  1866  utter  desolation  spread  over  the 
district  of  Orissa  and  one  million  of  its  inhabitants, 
one-fourth  of  the  entire  population,  perished  from 
starvation.  The  district  lay  within  easy  reach  of 
plenty,  and  was  fertile  enough  to  have  exported 
50,000  lbs.  of  rice  the  previous  year,  yet  in  1867  it 
was  rendered  an  uninhabitable  desert. 

These  alluvial  littoral  tracts,  lying  along  the  shores 
of  the  Bay  of  Bengal,  were  then  not  only  shut  in  from 
Central  India  by  high  mountains  and  inaccessible 
from  the  sea  while  the  monsoon  winds  raged,  but  were 
unapproachable  from  the  north  or  south  in  consequence 
of  the  bad  roads  and  unbridged  rivers,  over  which  lay 
the  only  means  of  communication  from  Calcutta  or 
Madras. 

When,  in  September,  1865,  the  rains  failed  and  the 
fields  were  parched,  the  people  prayed  for  remission 

22 


INDIA  UNDER  THE  CROWN. 


\22 


of  the  land  revenue,  for  there  remained  to  them  neither 
money  nor  food.  It  is  impossible  for  the  British 
administration  in  India  to  tell  what  grain  lies  hidden 
under  ground  in  the  village  store-pits,  or  how  much  is 
held  back  by  the  merchants  who  hope  to  gain  a rich 
harvest  when  prices  rise  high  or  when  scarcity  passes 
into  actual  famine.  So  in  1865  the  chief  Revenue 
authorities  saw  no  reason  for  alarm ; the  land  of  Orissa 
was  the  richest  in  India  ; rice  was  reported  to  be  held 
in  plenty  by  the  village  merchants,  and  it  was  expected 
that  more  would  be  imported  by  private  enterprise 
when  prices  commenced  to  rise.  In  May,  1866,  the 
news  suddenly  reached  Sir  John  Lawrence  that  the 
people  were  actually  dying  in  their  thousands,  that 
along  the  sandy  and  worn-out  roads  no  carts  could 
travel,  while  ships  laden  with  food  lay  tossing  at  the 
mercy  of  the  waves  near  the  coast,  no  boat  from  the 
shore  being  able  to  reach  them  on  account  of  the 
monsoon  winds.  Famine  amid  surrounding  plenty 
devastated  Orissa  and  Ganjam.  Cholera,  fever,  and 
disease  stalked  abroad  among  the  emaciated  people 
who  strove  to  support  life  by  eating  the  shrivelled 
leaves  of  the  stunted  shrubs  and  earth  from  the 
ant-hills. 

When  the  long-looked-for  rain  at  length  came,  the 
wide  Mahanach’  rose  in  flood,  broke  its  high  banks, 
and  spread  its  waters  over  a district  one  thousand 
square  miles  in  extent.  The  new-sown  crops  were 
covered,  and  1 J millions  of  the  despairing  population 
driven  from  their  homes. 

The  terrible  loss  incurred  during  the  short  course 
of  the  Orissa  famine,  and  the  suddenness  with  which 


PROTECTIVE  WORKS. 


323 


the  disaster  passed  beyond  control,  compelled  the 
Government  in  1868,  when  the  rains  again  failed  in 
Northern  India,  to  notify  to  the  district  officers  that 
they  would  be  held  directly  responsible  for  all  loss  of 
life  that  could  possibly  be  prevented.  Wells  were 
immediately  dug,  the  land  revenue  was  remitted,  food 
from  Oudh  was  hurried  to  the  threatened  districts 
in  British  territory,  where  loss  of  life  was  happily 
averted,  while  in  the  native  states  of  Rajputana  up- 
wards of  half  a million  people  perished  in  two  years. 

The  question  of  prevention  and  mitigation  of  famine 
long  remained  the  gravest  problem  of  Indian  ad- 
ministration. During  recent  years  all  the  skill  and 
resources  within  reach  of  a Western  civilisation  have 
been  ceaselessly  called  upon  to  devise  means  whereby 
these  sufferings  of  the  people  might  in  some  degree, 
at  least,  be  alleviated.  A new  Department  of  Irriga- 
tion, for  the  purpose  of  planning  and  constructing 
canals  for  the  protection  of  districts  liable  to  drought 
or  floods,  was  instituted  under  Colonel  Richard 
Strachey.  New  works,  costing  some  quarter  of  a 
million  sterling,  were  carried  out  before  John  Law- 
rence left  India,  and  plans  had  been  prepared  for 
others,  estimated  to  cost  at  least  £30,000,000,  within 
ten  years. 

The  construction  of  railways  was  pushed  forward, 
and  1,556  miles  of  rail  were  opened  up  in  five  years, 
so  that  India,  which  possessed  only  21^  miles  of  rail- 
way in  1853,  had  4,000  miles  opened  up  by  1868. 
These  railways,  which  cost  £17,000  per  mile,  were 
constructed  with  money  raised  upon  the  security  of 
a State  guarantee  of  5 per  cent,  interest,  so  that 


3^4  INDIA  UNDER  THE  CROWN. 

the  shareholders  incurred  no  risk.  It  was  not  till  the 
Northern  Punjab  Railway  was  commenced  that  State 
railways  were  constructed  and  money  raised  at  from 
3 to  4 per  cent.,  the  line  being  carried  out  on  the 
narrow-gauge  system,  or  one  metre  in  width,  costing 
only  some  £ 6,ooo  per  mile. 

Though  the  rice-growing  districts  on  the  east 
coast  suffered  so  terribly  from  famine,  the  cotton- 
growing tracts  on  the  west  had  enjoyed  undreamed- 
of prosperity. 

During  the  period  of  the  American  Civil  War  the 
demand  for  Indian  cotton,  for  the  Lancashire  mills, 
in  consequence  of  the  supply  from  America  having 
ceased,  became  so  great  that  the  price  in  Bombay 
rose  fourfold.  When  the  war  came  to  an  abrupt 
close  in  1865,  the  American  cotton,  with  its  long 
staple,  again  easily  ousted  the  Indian  cotton  in  the 
home  markets,  and  the  Indian  merchants  and  culti- 
vators were  suddenly  deprived  of  their  new-found 
means  of  wealth.  The  wages  of  labour  fell  to  their 
normal  condition  ; the  cotton  merchants  in  Bombay 
failed  one  after  another.  Companies,  started  in  the 
days  of  prosperity  for  visionary  schemes  of  land  re- 
clamation, mining,  tea-planting,  and  every  form  of 
wild  and  impossible  project,  immediately  collapsed. 
The  final  blow  came  in  1866,  when  the  Bombay 
Bank,  empowered  by  a new  charter  granted  in  1864 
by  Sir  Bartle  Frere,  the  Governor  of  Bombay,  to 
make  large  advances  on  other  than  Government 
securities,  failed,  half  its  capital  was  lost  in  place  of 
which  it  held  some  two  millions  of  useless  debts. 
Not  only  were  the  merchants  involved  in  the  ruin, 


RUSS/ AN  ADVANCES. 


325 


but  also  many  of  the  Government  officials  who  had 
trusted  their  long-earned  savings  to  a bank  they  had 
considered  secure  from  its  close  connection  with  the 
Government.  The  general  depression  was  further 
increased  by  the  fact  that  the  extraordinary  expendi- 
ture on  reproductive  works,  joined  to  an  increasing 
ordinary  expenditure  resulted  in  a deficit  of  eleven 
millions  sterling  during  the  three  years  from  1866  to 
1869. 

The  financial  position  was  undoubtedly  grave,  and 
yearly  became  more  complicated,  owing  to  demands 
for  funds  over  and  above  those  necessary  for  internal 
defence,  development  of  the  resources  of  the  country, 
and  protection  against  famine  and  pestilence. 

The  pressing  nature  of  these  demands  can  be 
best  estimated  from  the  fact  that  from  the  year 
1800,  when  Paul  I.,  the  Russian  Czar,  strove  to  gain 
the  aid  of  Napoleon  in  his  first  advance  from  the 
Caspian  towards  Herat,  Kandahar,  and  the  Indus, 
down  to  the  year  1885,  when  Mr.  Gladstone  de- 
manded an  immediate  vote  of  ;£i  1,000,000  from 
the  English  Parliament  to  prepare  for  a war  which 
appeared  inevitable,  the  Indian  Government  has 
deemed  it  necessary  to  spend  upwards  of  70 
millions  sterling  in  securing  the  north-west  passes 
from  any  possibility  of  invasion,  while  the  annual 
expenditure  on  frontier  fortifications  has  increased  so 
grievously  as  almost  to  lend  justification  to  the 
present  contention  that  the  finances  of  India  have 
been  reduced  to  the  verge  of  bankruptcy. 

The  question  first  came  within  the  sphere  of 
practical  politics  six  months  before  John  Lawrence 


3^6  INDIA  UNDER  THE  CROWN. 

landed  in  Calcutta,  when  the  Amir  of  Afghanis- 
tan, Dost  Muhammad,  died  at  Herat,  and  left  his 
kingdom  to  his  son  Sher  Ah',  passing  over  his  two 
elder  sons  Afzul  and  Azim,  both  born  of  a mother 
less  noble  than  the  mother  of  Sher  Ah'.  In  1864 
Muhammad  Afzul  Khan  rose  in  rebellion  and  pro- 
claimed himself  Amir  at  Balkh  ; Azim  hurried  from 
his  Governorship  at  Kuram  to  the  aid  of  his  elder 
brother,  while  among  the  other  sixteen  of  Dost 
Muhammad’s  sons  a fratricidal  war  commenced. 

Towards  the  fighting  brothers  Lawrence  steadily 
maintained  a policy  of  “ non-intervention  ” ; and  to 
whichever  brother  succeeded  in  establishing  himself 
in  power  at  Kdbul,  Her&t,  or  Kandahar,  friendly 
letters  of  congratulation  were  sent. 

By  September,  1868,  Sher  Ah'  succeeded  in 
establishing  himself  as  Amir  of  Afghanistan,  his 
brother  Azim  fled  as  a fugitive  to  Turkestdn,  and 
Abdur  Rahmfin,  son  of  Afzul,  escaped  to  Khiva, 
thence  to  Bokhara  and  Tashkend,  in  Turkestdn, 
where  he  received  a pension  of  18,000  roubles  from 
the  Russian  Government.  When  Sher  Ah'  was  com- 
pletely in  possession  of  his  father’s  dominions  the 
Viceroy  offered  him  a sum  of  £60,000,  along  with 
3,500  muskets,  in  accordance  with  the  strongly  ex- 
pressed opinion  of  Sir  Henry  Rawlinson,  who  wrote  : 
“ Whatever  the  price  it  must  be  paid,  of  such  para- 
mount importance  is  it  to  obtain  at  the  present 
time  a dominant  position  at  Kabul,  and  to  close 
that  avenue  of  approach  against  Russia.” 

Unfortunately  the  ruler  of  Afghanistan  was  now 
wearied  with  the  English,  who  had  stood  aloof  during 


AFGHAN/STAN. 


327 


times  of  trouble  and  dissension,  only  to  come  forward, 
when  peace  was  established,  to  make  friends  with  him 
when  he  had  risen  to  power.  More  than  once  Sher 
Ah'  sought  to  gain  the  aid  and  alliance  of  Russia — 
a course  Sir  John  Lawrence  determined  to  oppose, 
for,  as  he  wrote  to  the  Home  Government,  it  was 
now  time  to  inform  Russia  “ in  firm  but  courteous 
language  that  it  cannot  be  permitted  to  interfere  in 
the  affairs  of  Afghanistan.” 

Lord  Mayo  succeeded  to  the  Governor-Generalship 
in  1869,  and  Sher  Ah'  came  to  Ambdla  hoping  to 
gain  from  the  new  Viceroy  an  alliance  offensive  and 
defensive  against  all  his  enemies.  From  Lord  Mayo 
the  Ami'r  could  obtain  no  treaty,  no  promise  of  a 
fixed  allowance,  not  even  a recognition  of  himself 
and  his  descendants  as  possessing  a right  to  rule  in 
Afghanistan.  The  Governor  could  only  declare  that 
“ we  are  prepared  to  give  him  all  the  moral  support 
in  our  power  ; and  that  in  addition  we  are  willing  to 
assist  him  with  money,  arms  and  ammunition,  native 
artificers,  and  in  other  ways,  whenever  we  deem  it 
desirable  to  do  so.” 

To  Lord  Mayo  it  seemed  well  that  the  people  of 
Afghanistan  should  gradually  and  surely  learn  that 
on  no  pretext  would  a British  soldier  cross  their 
frontiers  to  interfere  in  their  internal  affairs.  He 
hoped  that  an  agreement  could  be  made  with  Russia 
whereby  both  nations  would  consent  to  abstain  from 
interfering  with  the  dominions  held  by  Sher  Ah', 
and  accept  the  Oxus  as  the  northern  boundary  of 
Afghanistan. 

In  January,  1873,  the  boundaries  to  the  north  of 


328 


INDIA  UNDER  THE  CROWN. 


Afghanistan  were  fixed,  Russia  consenting  to  waive 
any  objections  to  Badakshan  and  Wakhan  being  in- 
cluded in  the  territories  held  by  the  Amir,  Sher  Ah'. 
The  safest  policy  for  the  Indian  Government  to 
pursue  with  regard  to  Afghanistan  had  been  in- 
dicated by  Sir  John  Lawrence  in  the  following 
words  : “ We  think  it  impolitic  and  unwise  to 
decrease  any  of  the  difficulties  which  would  be  en- 
tailed on  Russia,  if  that  Power  seriously  thought  of 
invading  India,  as  we  should  constantly  decrease 
them  if  we  left  our  own  frontier  and  met  her  half- 
way in  a difficult  country  and  possibly  in  the  midst 
of  a hostile  or  exasperated  population.  We  see  no 
limit  to  the  expenditure  which  such  a move  might 
require,  and  we  protest  against  the  necessity  of 
having  to  impose  taxation  on  the  people  of  India.” 
In  his  opinion  the  threatened  danger  could  only 
be  averted  by  “ husbanding  our  finances  and  con- 
solidating and  multiplying  our  resources  in  quiet 
preparation  for  all  contingencies  which  no  Indian 
statesman  should  disregard.” 

The  importance  of  this  policy  was  further  forced  on 
Lord  Mayo  by  the  fact  that,  in  addition  to  the  deficit 
of  eleven  millions  sterling  accruing  from  the  years 
1866-69,  the  estimates  for  1869-70,  his  first  year  of 
office,  disclosed  on  examination  a further  probable 
heavy  deficit  of  nearly  if  millions  sterling.  Not- 
withstanding the  urgency  of  providing  for  a possible 
recurrence  of  famine  and  the  necessity  of  opening  up 
the  resources  and  trade  of  the  country  by  an  exten- 
sion of  railways,  as  well  as  providing  for  the  defence 
of  the  North-west  Frontier,  Lord  Mayo  wrote : “ I am 


DEATH  OF  LORD  MAYO. 


329 


determined  not  to  have  another  deficit,  if  it  lead  to 
the  diminution  of  the  Army,  the  reduction  of  Civil 
Establishments,  and  the  stoppage  of  Public  Works.” 

By  curtailment  of  the  grant  for  public  works,  by 
reduction  of  the  amount  for  local  expenditure,  by 
raising  the  income-tax  from  1 to  2\  per  cent.,  and 
by  increasing  the  salt  duties  in  Bombay  and  Madras, 
the  Viceroy  succeeded  in  changing  an  expected 
deficit  of  £1,650,000  into  a surplus  of  £108,000. 
During  the  next  three  years,  from  1870-1  to  1872-3, 
Lord  Mayo's  financial  reforms  resulted  in  a surplus  of 
£5,840,134. 

All  Lord  Mayo’s  efforts  for  the  welfare  of  India 
came  to  a sad  close  on  the  8th  of  Lebruary,  1872, 
when  he  was  stabbed  by  a convict  while  inspecting 
the  convict  settlement  of  the  Andaman  Islands. 

A vivid  and  impressive  account  is  given  in  the 
Life  of  Sir  James  Fitzjames  Stephen,  edited  by 
his  brother,  Leslie  Stephen,  of  the  solemnity  of  the 
mournful  procession,  when  the  body  of  the  dead 
Viceroy  was  borne  through  the  streets  of  Calcutta. 
The  terrible  reality  seems  to  have  struck  the  minds 
of  all  the  sorrowing  onlookers  that  they  were  but 
a band  of  foreigners  asserting  their  right  to  wage 
a war  for  Western  civilisation  amid  a hostile  people 
who  would  willingly  free  themselves,  if  possible, 
from  the  galling  restraints  under  which  their  peace 
and  prosperity  were  assured.  In  a letter  from 
Calcutta,  dated  February  23,  1872,  Sir  James 

Stephen  described  his  feelings,  which  must  have 
been  common  to  many  of  the  onlookers : “ I never 
expected  to  be  impressed  by  a mere  ceremonial, 


330 


INDIA  UNDER  THE  CROWN. 


but  there  were  some  things  almost  oppressive  from 
their  reality  and  solemnity.  . . . The  whole  road  was 
lined  with  troops  on  both  sides,  but  they  stood  at 
intervals  of  several  yards,  and  there  was  an  immense 
crowd  close  behind,  in  some  places  in  between  them. 

. . . I saw  some  suspicious-looking  fellows  grinning 
and  sneering  and  showing  their  teeth  myself,  and 
I felt  as  if  I could  have  killed  them.  No  one  who 
has  not  felt  it  can  imagine  how  we  all  feel  out  here 
in  regard  to  such  matters.  When  Lord  Mayo  was 
stabbed  I think  every  man  in  the  country  felt  as  if 
he  had  been  more  or  less  stabbed  himself.  . . . There 
was  a dead  silence  all  the  way  and  the  Europeans  as 
grim  as  death.” 

A few  days  after  he  describes  the  scene  when  the 
coffin  was  carried  to  the  ship.  “ You  cannot  imagine 
the  awful  solemnity  which  all  this  precaution  gave  the 
whole  thing.  It  was  like  marching  through  a city 
half  dead  and  half  besieged.  . . . There  was  a stern 
look  of  reality  about  the  whole  affair  quite  unlike 
what  one  has  seen  elsewhere.  Troops  and  cannon 
and  gun-carriages  seem  out  of  place  in  England  . . . 
but  it  is  a very  different  matter  here  where  everything 
rests  upon  military  force.  The  guns  and  the  troops 
are  not  only  the  outward  and  visible  marks  of  power, 
but  they  are  the  power  itself  to  a great  extent.” 

Facts  such  as  these,  apparent  to  most  British 
officials  in  India,  military  and  civil  alike,  have  a 
significance  more  or  less  definitely  indicated  by  the 
tacit  silence  universally  held  by  all  thoughtful  men 
when  their  opinion  is  sought  on  Indian  affairs,  for 
they  know  full  well  the  appalling  catastrophe  that 


LORD  NORTHBROOK. 


331 


would  sweep  over  the  land,  rolling  away  innocent 
and  guilty  alike,  if  once  the  spring  were  recklessly 
loosened  which  at  present  holds  all  quiet  in  a 
seeming  sleep  of  peace  and  amity. 

When  Lord  Northbrook  landed  at  Calcutta  in  May, 
1872,  and  assumed  charge  of  the  Government  from 
Lord  Napier,  India  was  at  peace,  the  finances  satis- 
factory, and  hopes  entertained  that  the  income-tax 
might  be  abolished,  a surplus  of  if  millions  being 
expected  on  the  year’s  estimates.  Trade  was  pros- 
perous, having  grown  rapidly  since  the  opening  in 
1869  of  the  Suez  Canal.  The  new  Viceroy  was  free 
to  view  calmly  the  pressing  questions  daily  becoming 
more  important,  arising  from  the  steady  advance  of 
Russia  towards  the  Hindu  Kush. 

By  1865  General  Kaufmann  reached  Samarkand, 
and  Bokhara  had  become  tributary  to  the  Czar.  By 
June,  1873,  Khiva  fell,  and  the  territories  of  the  Khdn 
up  to  the  right  bank  of  the  Oxus  were  annexed. 
The  Amir  of  Afghanistan,  alarmed  for  the  safety  of 
his  own  kingdom,  at  once  sent  an  envoy  with  all 
speed  to  Simla  to  learn  from  Lord  Northbrook  if  he 
could  depend  on  the  English  for  help  in  the  event 
of  his  own  lands  being  invaded. 

England  had  been  assured  by  the  Russian  Govern- 
ment that  Afghanistan  lay  outside  the  sphere  of 
her  conquests,  so  Lord  Northbrook  sent  back  word 
to  the  Amir  that  there  was  no  cause  for  alarm, 
that  the  English  Government  was  prepared  to 
aid  him  with  money  and  supplies,  and  in  case  of 
necessity  even  to  send  troops  to  his  help,  if  he  con- 
tinued to  follow  the  advice  of  the  Viceroy  and  give 


332 


INDIA  UNDER  THE  CROWN. 


no  cause  of  offence  by  aggression  against  Russian 
territory.  The  Amir  received  the  message  of  the 
Viceroy  with  scant  courtesy.  The  arms  forwarded  to 
him  were  accepted,  but  five  lakhs  of  rupees,  offered 
as  a compensation  for  the  loss  of  a portion  of 
Seistan,  were  not  accepted.  Sher  Ah'  had  deter- 
mined to  set  his  face  away  from  the  ruling  powers 
in  India,  and  closely  watch  the  advance  of  Russia. 
In  Lord  Salisbury’s  opinion,  however,  it  was  neces- 
sary that  the  Amir  of  Afghanistan  should  be  called 
upon  to  receive  a British  Agency  at  Kabul,  so 
that  immediate  information  might  be  obtained  of 
Russian  operations  on  the  frontiers,  and  timely 
remonstrances  be  made  at  St.  Petersburg  by  a 
British  envoy.  Lord  Northbrook  thought  otherwise. 
He  knew  well  the  inveterate  objection  the  Amir  had 
always  manifested  to  the  presence  of  British  officers 
at  Kabul,  and  he  was  satisfied  that  accurate  informa- 
tion of  the  affairs  of  Afghanistan  could  be  obtained 
from  the  native  Indian  envoy  then  resident  at  the 
Court  of  the  Amir.  The  Viceroy  and  his  Council 
accordingly  felt  compelled  to  protest  against  the 
policy  of  forcing  a British  Embassy  on  Afghanistan, 
and  in  1876  the  Viceroy  felt  it  necessary  to  request 
that  he  should  be  relieved,  on  the  grounds  of  ill- 
health,  from  the  duties  of  his  office. 

During  Lord  Northbrook’s  administration  three 
important  events  happened.  In  1873-4  a threatened 
famine  in  Lower  Bengal  was  averted  by  .timely 
relief  and  the  purchase  of  grain.  The  Gaekwar 
of  Baroda  was  tried  on  a charge  of  having  en- 
deavoured to  poison  the  British  Resident,  Colonel 


FAMINE. 


333 


Phayre,  by  mixing  poison  with  his  sherbet,  and 
after  a famous  trial  deposed  for  misgovern ment. 
During  the  cold  weather  of  1875-6  the  visit  of  the 
Prince  of  Wales  produced  an  outburst  of  emotional 
loyalty,  showing  how  deep  down  in  the  hearts  of 
the  people  still  lay  their  devotion  to  the  ideal  of  a 
feudal  sovereignty. 

Lord  Northbrook  was  succeeded  by  Lord  Lytton, 
whose  imaginative  and  poetic  temperament  found  full 
play  in  inaugurating  the  scene  of  Oriental  pomp  and 
splendour,  amid  which  the  Queen  of  England  was 
proclaimed  Empress  of  India  on  the  1st  of  January, 
1877. 

To  those  who  lived  in  the  south  of  India  during 
1876  and  1877  the  memory  of  those  years  will  ever 
be  associated  with  the  wave  of  desolation  of  famine 
which  swept  away  5J-  millions  of  the  population  who 
died  in  silent  suffering,  notwithstanding  all  efforts 
made  to  save  them.  To  succour  the  starving  people 
over  eleven  millions  of  tens  of  rupees  were  expended 
by  the  Government. 

In  order  to  carry  out  a complete  scheme  of  protec- 
tive works  against  future  famines,  and  to  construct 
new  canals  and  railways,  a special  license  tax  on  the 
profits,  exceeding  £200  a year,  of  all  trades  and 
professions  was  imposed,  and  with  the  income  thus 
raised  16^  millions  of  rupees  were  expended  on  pro- 
tective works  from  1880  to  1895. 

From  the  south,  where  the  famine  raged,  the  atten- 
tion of  Lord  Lytton  was  directed  to  the  Amir  of 
Afghanistan  who,  in  the  words  of  the  Viceroy, 
“ pretends  to  hold  the  balance  between  England 


334 


INDIA  UNDER  THE  CROWN. 


FAMINE  GROUP  FROM  MADRAS. 


ANOTHER  FAMINE  GROUP  FROM  MADRAS. 


II  Bt 


THE  TWO  IRON  POTS. 


335 


and  Russia,  independent  of  either.”  That  the  Amir 
should  distinctly  understand  the  true  nature  of  his 
relationship  to  the  two  empires,  each  watching  with 
growing  impatience  every  move  made  to  checkmate 
the  other’s  advance,  was  told  by  the  Viceroy  the  un- 
pleasant truth  that  “ his  position  is  rather  that  of  an 
earthen  pipkin  between  two  iron  pots.”  At  the  same 
time  the  Amir  was  informed  by  Lord  Salisbury  that 
neither  by  the  treaty  of  1855,  nor  by  Lord  Mayo  in 
1869,  nor  by  Lord  Northbrook  in  1873,  “was  any 
assurance  given  of  unconditional  protection.” 

To  one  thing,  however,  the  Amir  was  resolved  not 
to  submit,  and  that  was  the  entry  of  any  English 
envoy  into  his  dominions.  He  knew  that  the  ap- 
pearance of  an  English  officer  at  Kabul  would  goad 
his  wild,  fanatic  subjects  to  fury,  and  that  neither 
his  own  position  nor  the  envoy’s  life  would  be 
safe.  The  Amir  had  also  doubts  respecting  the  in- 
tentions of  the  English,  for  he  had  seen  the  British 
troops,  in  November,  1876,  take  up  a permanent 
advanced  position  at  Quetta  on  the  south  of  his 
dominions — a move  he  deemed,  not  unnaturally,  to  be 
the  first  step  in  the  advance  towards  Kandahar  and 
Herat.  The  Amir  accordingly,  in  his  reply  to  the 
Viceroy,  stated  that  he  objected  to  the  appointment 
of  an  envoy,  for  “ We  mistrust  you,  and  fear  you 
will  write  all  sorts  of  reports  about  us,  which  will 
some  day  be  brought  forward  against  us  and  lead 
to  your  taking  the  control  of  our  affairs  out  of 
our  hands.”  Lord  Lytton,  finding  that  neither 
diplomatic  finesse  nor  harsh  threats  could  force  an 
envoy  on  Afghanistan,  peremptorily  refused  to  enter 


336  INDIA  UNDER  THE  CROWN. 

into  further  negotiations  with  the  Amir,  who  was 
left  for  the  future  to  take  what  course  he  deemed 
fit  for  the  preservation  of  the  independence  of  his 
own  dominions. 

In  Europe  the  Russians  had  crossed  the  Balkans 
and  forced  on  Turkey  the  Treaty  of  San  Stefano, 
only  to  be  held  in  check  by  England,  who  mobilised 
her  forces  and  brought  to  Malta  sepoys  from  India. 
Still,  if  England  could  stay  the  course  of  Russia 
towards  the  Mediterranean,  Russia  could  strive  to 
shake  to  its  very  foundations  the  British  rule  in  India. 
Before  the  Peace  of  Berlin  had  been  signed  Stolietoff 
was  hurrying  from  Samarkand  to  Kabul  bearing  to 
the  Amir  a treaty  of  friendship  and  alliance.  As  soon 
as  the  news  reached  the  Viceroy  that  a Russian 
Embassy  had  been  received  by  the  Amir,  and  that 
Russian  soldiers  were  to  be  seen  in  the  bazaars  at 
Kabul,  he  determined,  whether  the  Amir  desired  it  or 
not,  to  send  an  English  officer  to  Afghanistan. 

From  Peshawar  Sir  Neville  Chamberlain  was 
directed  to  march  with  a small  escort  to  Kabul 
through  the  Khaibar  Pass.  At  Ah’  Masjid,  the 
first  fort  commanding  the  mountain  pass,  Major 
Cavagnari  received  a polite  intimation  that  if  the 
embassy  advanced  further  its  passage  would  be 
resisted  by  force  of  arms. 

In  vain  Lord  Lawrence  pleaded  that  the  English 
nation  should  refrain  from  imperilling  its  position  by 
advancing  beyond  its  own  strong  boundaries  on  the 
Indian  frontier  to  wage  war  against  a foe  that  would 
never  tamely  submit  to  foreign  invasion.  In  vain 
Lord  Northbrook  ureed  that  since  the  sip-nine  of  the 


SI R LOUIS  CAVAGNARI. 


337 


Treaty  of  Berlin  all  fear  of  danger  had  passed  away. 
War  was  declared  against  the  Amir  on  the  21st  of 
November,  and  before  the  year  was  out  General  Sir 
Samuel  Browne  was  encamped  with  a conquering 
force  at  Jalalabad  ; Sir  Donald  Stewart  had  marched 
from  Quetta  up  the  Pish  in  Valley  to  Kandahar, 
and  General  Frederick  Roberts  had  made  his  way 
through  the  Kuram  Valley.  The  Amir,  accom- 
panied by  a remnant  of  the  Russian  Embassy,  fled 
from  his  capital.  On  the  21st  of  February,  1879, 
he  died  at  Balkh,  forsaken  by  his  allies,  and  left  his 
son,  Yakub  Khan,  to  make  what  terms  he  could 
with  the  English  who  now  held  Afghanistan.  On 
the  26th  of  May  the  Treaty  of  Gandamak  was 
signed,  by  which  the  external  policy  of  Afghanistan 
was  placed  under  British  control,  the  districts  of 
Kuram,  Pishin,  and  Sibi  ceded,  the  control  over 
the  tribes  guarding  the  Khaibar  and  Kuram  passes 
relinquished,  and  a permanent  British  envoy  and 
escort  accepted  at  Kabul.  With  calm  resignation 
Sir  Louis  Cavagnari,  William  Jenkins  of  the  Civil 
Service,  Dr.  Kelly,  and  Lieutenant  Hamilton,  V.C., 
with  seventy-five  of  the  Guides,  rode  into  the  Bala 
Hissar  on  the  24th  of  July,  1879,  to  meet  the  fate 
foreshadowed  by  those  who  knew  the  deep  hatred 
that  rankled  in  the  hearts  of  the  fanatic  tribesmen 
of  Afghanistan  against  the  intruders  in  their  land. 

For  five  weeks  the  embassy  remained  at  Kabul  in 
the  Residency  near  the  Amir’s  palace.  Each  day  Sir 
Louis  Cavagnari  reported  that  all  went  well.  Suddenly, 
on  the  3rd  of  September,  the  pent-up  storm  burst 
forth.  The  city  rabble,  led  on  by  the  wild  soldiery 


335 


INDIA  UNDER  THE  CROWN. 


of  Herat,  came  clamouring  to  the  Residency  gates. 
The  defenders  fought  long  for  their  1 ves  ; they  fell 
one  by  one,  and  the  last  of  the  Guides  perished  amid 


KABULIS. 


the  flames  of  the  Residency.  Lord  Lytton  had,  at 
last,  more  than  justifiable  grounds  to  exact  the  ut- 
most penalty  from  the  new  Amir  for  his  treacherous 


SIR  FREDERICK  ROBERTS  AT  KABUL.  339 

violation  of  a treaty  of  safe  conduct  to  a British 
Embassy. 

Major-General  Sir  Frederick  Roberts,  at  the  head 
of  a force  of  5,500  men  and  twenty  guns,  marched 
through  the  Kuram  Valley,  and  received  the  sub- 
mission of  Yakub  Khan  on  the  2nd  of  October. 
On  the  6th  the  whole  Afghan  force  of  some  thirteen 
regiments  was  driven  before  the  advancing  force, 
and  by  the  nth  Sir  Frederick  Roberts  was  before 
the  Residency  viewing  the  burnt  ruins  where  Cavag- 
nari  and  his  band  had  bravely  fought  and  died. 

All  guilty  of  murder  or  treachery  were  hunted  out 
and  punished,  the  Amir  was  deported  to  India,  and 
the  British  army  of  seven  thousand  men  encamped 
on  the  heights  overlooking  Kabul.  Towards  the 
end  of  the  year  the  tribesmen  gathered  together, 
and  marched  in  from  all  sides  against  the  handful  of 
English  troops.  On  the  1 1 th  of  December  General 
Massey  was  sent  out  towards  Ghazni  with  four  horse- 
artillery  guns,  a troop  of  the  14th  Bengal  Lancers, 
and  two  squadrons  of  the  9th  Lancers,  to  aid  General 
Macpherson  in  scattering  the  tribesmen  who  were 
swarming  in  from  the  west  towards  Kabul.  As 
General  Massey  advanced  he  suddenly  found  himself 
face  to  face  with  upwards  of  10,000  Afghan  fighting 
men,  who  immediately  opened  fire  on  the  British 
troops.  A charge  of  two  hundred  of  the  Lancers 
into  the  midst  of  the  foe  held  them  back  for  a 
short  time,  but  at  a loss  of  sixteen  men  and  two 
officers.  The  British  force  were  outnumbered,  and 
retreated.  Lieutenant  Hardy,  of  the  Horse  Artillery, 
fell  beside  his  gun,  which  had  to  be  spiked,  and 


340 


INDIA  UNDER  THE  CROWN. 


the  three  remaining  guns  were  abandoned  in  a deep 
watercourse  whence  they  were  afterwards  brought  in 
by  Colonel  Macgregor. 

As  General  Massey’s  force  retired,  keeping  the 
enemy  at  bay,  two  hundred  men  of  the  72nd  High- 
landers, ordered  out  by  Sir  Frederick  Roberts,  came 
to  the  rescue,  and  gaining  the  village  Deh  Mazung  at 
the  gorge  of  a pass  in  the  hills  to  the  west  of  the 
Sherpur  cantonments,  prevented  the  further  advance 
of  the  Afghan  tribesmen.  The  Afghans,  defeated  in 
their  attempt  to  rush  the  cantonments,  took  posses- 
sion of  the  hills  near  Kabul.  To  their  aid  reinforce- 
ments poured  in  from  all  sides,  and  daily  assailed 
the  position  held  by  an  army  little  more  than 
that  which  had  retired  in  the  winter  of  1841.  Sir 
Frederick  Roberts,  knowing  that  the  enemy  would 
soon  deliver  themselves  over  into  his  hands  to  be 
heavily  smitten  and  broken  in  pieces,  quietly  waited 
his  time,  and  withdrew  the  whole  of  his  troops  into 
the  cantonments.  Ever  cool  and  ever  cheerful  he 
was  to  be  seen  at  all  hours  of  the  day  and  night 
passing  from  post  to  post,  encouraging  each  soldier, 
leaving  nothing  to  chance. 

On  the  last  night  of  the  Mohurrum,  the  23rd  of 
December,  the  ninety  years’  old  chief  of  Ghazni, 
Mashk-i  Alam,  who,  by  his  influence,  had  fanned 
a religious  war  of  extermination  against  the  un- 
believers, sent  forth  from  the  heights  of  Asmai  the 
signal,  a flame  of  fire,  for  a final  attack.  Some 
30,000  fierce  clansmen  and  trained  soldiers,  led  by 
howling  bands  of  Ghazis,  rushed  down  on  the 
camp.  Within  the  entrenchments  dead  silence 


THE  AM/' R. 


341 


reigned,  to  each  man  his  post  had  been  allotted. 
When  the  Afghan  host  drew  close  the  sullen  roll  of 
the  musketry  rang  out  from  the  trenches  and  bastions 
and  volley  after  volley  was  poured  into  the  dense 
mass  of  advancing  foes.  For  hours  the  fierce 
Afghans  strove  to  gain  the  defences,  till,  taken  in 
the  flank  by  four  guns  sent  out  from  an  opening  in 
the  hills  to  the  north,  they  broke,  pursued  by  the 
cavalry,  and  left  their  thousands  dead  behind,  the 
survivors  escaping  to  carry  the  news  of  their  defeat 
far  and  wide  through  the  villages  of  Afghanistan. 

On  the  20th  of  July,  1880,  by  the  direction  of  Lord 
Ripon,  who  had  succeeded  Lord  Lytton,  it  was  an- 
nounced to  the  chiefs  and  sardars  at  Kabul  by  Mr. 
(now  Sir)  Lepel  Griffin  that  the  Viceroy  and  Govern- 
ment of  the  Queen-Empress  had  decided  to  recognise 
as  Amir  of  Afghanistan  Abdur  Rahman  Khan,  grand- 
son of  Dost  Muhammad,  who  had  long  been  a 
pensioner  in  Russian  territory. 

A few  days  later,  on  July  27th,  a terrible  disaster 
befel  General  Burrows’  Brigade  at  Maiwand.  Ayub 
Khan,  brother  of  Yakub  Khan,  had  marched  from 
Herat  to  Kandahar,  and  there  met  two  Bombay 
regiments,  six  companies  of  the  66th,  a troop  of 
horse  artillery,  and  some  native  cavalry,  which  he 
utterly  routed,  inflicting  on  them  a loss  of  964  killed 
and  167  wounded. 

Before  Abdur  Rahman  could  be  left  in  safety  at 
Kabul  his  opponent,  Ayub  Khan,  had  to  be  crushed 
and  the  reverse  to  the  English  troops  retrieved.  On 
the  9th  of  August  Sir  Frederick  Roberts,  at  the 
head  of  10,000  men,  2,835  being  Europeans,  set  out, 


342 


INDIA  UNDER  THE  CROWN. 


without  wheeled  artillery,  on  his  famous  march  from 
Kabul  to  Kandahar  320  miles  distant.  The  force 
reached  Robat  on  the  28th,  the  distance,  303  miles, 
having  been  covered  in  twenty  days,  and  in  the  battle 
of  Kandahar,  fought  on  the  1st  of  September,  Ayub 
Khan  was  defeated,  his  army  dispersed,  some  l,oco 
of  his  troops  slain  and  all  his  guns  captured. 

The  British  troops  were  gradually  withdrawn  from 
Afghanistan,  and  the  Kuram  and  Khaibar  Passes 
relinquished  in  the  year  1 880-1.  On  the  1st  of  April, 
1881,  Kandahar  was  evacuated  and  Abdur  Rahman 
left  to  consolidate  his  power  and  extend  his  sway 
over  his  subjects. 

The  remainder  of  Lord  Ripon’s  administration  was 
devoted  to  the  peaceful  development  of  the  resources 
of  the  country.  He  abolished  the  import  duties,  espe- 
cially those  on  cotton  goods  ; he  enlarged  and  extended 
the  principle  of  local  self-government,  set  free  the 
vernacular  press  from  the  restrictions  imposed  on  it 
by  Lord  Lytton,  extended  the  criminal  jurisdiction 
of  native  Civil  servants  of  the  grade  of  District  Magis- 
trate, re-established  the  Department  of  Revenue  and 
Agriculture,  and  made  efforts  for  the  encouraging  of 
primary  education  on  the  lines  recommended  by  an 
Education  Commission  which  he  appointed. 

The  final  expansion  of  British  India  took  place 
during  the  Viceroyalty  of  Lord  Dufiferin,  who,  on  the 
1 st  of  January,  1 886,  annexed  LTpper  Burma,  Mandalay 
havir  g been  captured  in  November,  1885,  by  General 
Prendergast,  in  consequence  of  the  barbarities  and 
intolerance  of  King  Theebaw. 

In  1883  it  seemed  that  war  was  almost  inevitable 


PANJDEH. 


343 


between  Russia  and  England.  On  the  frontier  of 
Afghanistan  Sir  Peter  Lumsden  and  a Russian 
Commission  were  engaged  in  laying  down  the 


HP* 





boundaries  of  the  Amir’s  dominions  and  those  of 
the  Czar.  Both  sides  laid  claim  to  Panjdeh  at  the 
junction  of  the  Kushk  and  Murghal  Rivers.  The 
Afghan  general,  Shams-ud-Dfn,  moved  his  soldiers 


344 


INDIA  UNDER  THE  CROWN. 


across  the  Kushk  River,  and  was  ordered  to  retire  by 
the  Russian  general,  Komaroff.  He  refused,  and  five 
hundred  of  his  force  were  shot  down  in  less  than  an 
hour  by  the  Russian  Cossacks  and  Turkomans.  At 
the  time  the  Amir  Abdur  Rahman  was  at  Rawal 
Pindi  on  a visit  to  Lord  Dufferin,  and  the  expected 
war,  for  which  the  English  Parliament  had,  at  the 
request  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  voted  an  immediate  grant 
of  eleven  millions  sterling,  was  happily  averted  by 
the  Amir  withdrawing  his  claim  to  Panjdeh,  his  right 
to  Zurfikar  being  recognised  in  exchange. 

For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  British  rule  in 
India  the  native  princes  eagerly  pressed  forward  in 
the  supposed  emergency  with  offers  of  aid  in  money, 
transport,  and  men,  some  even  offering  to  maintain 
their  own  troops  at  the  front  if  the  Viceroy  would  but 
accept  their  offer  to  repel  what  was  feared  would  be 
the  commencement  of  a Russian  invasion. 

On  the  3rd  of  December,  1888,  the  Marquis  of 
Lansdowne  landed  at  Bombay,  having  been  appointed 
to  succeed  the  Earl  of  Dufferin,  created  Marquis  of 
Dufferin  and  Ava  for  his  services  during  his  Vice- 
royalty. 

Many  and  varied  were  the  problems  that  presented 
themselves  for  solution  during  the  administration  of 
Lord  Lansdowne.  First  there  were  the  questions  in 
connection  with  the  National  Congress,  or  assemblage 
of  representatives  from  all  parts  of  India,  which  first 
met  in  1886,  and  still  continues  annually  to  hold 
meetings  in  December  of  each  year,  to  formulate  and 
press  on  the  Government  measures  which  it  deems 
essential  in  consequence  of  the  newly  awakened 


MANIPUR. 


345 


hopes  and  aspirations  of  the  more  educated  natives. 
There  were  also  questions  connected  with  local  repre- 
sentation and  freedom  of  members  of  the  Legislative 
Council  to  discuss  finance  and  financial  legislation, 
and  questions  respecting  the  newly  aroused,  bitter, 
and  often  sanguinary  feuds  between  different  religious 
sections  of  the  community  in  India,  all  of  which  await 
their  solution  in  the  future. 

The  condition  of  affairs  at  Manipur,  on  the  borders 
of  Assam,  and  in  Chitral,  a state  lying  between 
Afghanistan  and  the  North-west  frontier,  were  of 
more  immediate  interest.  All  that  is  at  present 
known,  and  it  is  doubtful  if  more  ever  will  be 
known,  of  the  true  facts  of  the  former  is  that  in 
the  Hill  state  of  Manipur,  having  an  area  of 
about  4,500  square  miles,  the  ruling  chief  was, 
in  September,  1890,  driven  out  from  his  territories 
by  his  own  brother,  the  Senapati,  or  leader  of  the 
army,  and  another  of  his  brothers  proclaimed  Regent 
in  his  place.  The  chief  fled  first  to  Mr.  Grimwood, 
the  Viceroy’s  agent  at  Manipur,  thence  to  Calcutta. 
The  Viceroy  at  once  directed  Mr.  Quinton,  Com- 
missioner of  Assam,  to  proceed  to  Manipur  and 
recognise  the  newly  appointed  Regent  as  chief  of 
the  state,  but  at  the  same  time  directions  were 
given  that  the  Senapati  should  be  captured  and 
removed.  With  an  escort  of  four  hundred  Ghurkas 
Lieutenant-Colonel  Skene  left  Assam  and  marched  to 
Manipur,  where  he  summoned  the  newly  appointed 
Regent  and  the  Senapati  to  meet  him  in  public 
Darbar,  the  intention  being  that  the  Senapati  should 
there  be  apprised  of  the  intentions  of  Government 


346  INDIA  UNDER  THE  CROWN. 

and  publicly  arrested.  As  the  Senapati,  however,  did 
not  deem  it  wise  to  attend  the  Darbar,  an  attempt 
was  made  on  the  24th  of  March  to  arrest  him  at  his 
own  house.  He  resisted,  and  in  turn  attacked  the 
Residency.  Mr.  Quinton,  Mr.  Grimwood,  and  Colonel 
Skene,  were  outnumbered,  and  when  they  went  with 
a flag  of  truce  to  the  Regent  they  were  treacherously 
assassinated. 

The  escort  retreated  from  the  Residency,  but  on 
the  arrival  of  reinforcements  order  was  restored.  The 
Senapati  and  those  guilty  suffered  the  penalty  of 
death,  the  Regent  was  transported  for  life,  and  a 
minor  representative  of  the  ruling  family  nominated 
by  the  British  Government  to  the  chieftainship,  a 
political  Resident  being  placed  in  adminstrative  charge 
during  the  minority  of  the  young  Rdjd. 

Chitral,  a state  larger  than  Wales,  inhabited  by 
some  eighty  thousand  wild  and  reckless  hill-men, 
had  for  long  preserved  its  independence,  hid  away 
as  it  was  amid  the  surrounding  vast  mountain  ranges. 
Separated  from  Russian  territories  by  the  state  of 
Wakhdn,  Chitral  guards  the  Ishkamun  and  Baroghil 
Passes  leading  across  the  Hindu  Kush — the  great 
watershed  between  India  and  Central  Asia — to  the 
Pamirs. 

In  1876  the  Chief  of  Chitral  sought  to  enter  into 
friendly  relations  with  the  Maharaja  of  Kashmir — a 
policy  in  which  he  was  encouraged  by  the  Indian 
Government,  as  it  was  hoped  that  thereby  effectual 
control  might  be  ultimately  gained  over  the  northern 
passes,  and  to  some  extent  a voice  in  the  external 
affairs  of  Chitral  itself.  In  1878  a treaty  was 


CHITRAL. 


347 


successfully  drawn  up  under  Lord  Lytton’s  auspices 
between  the  Chief  of  Chitral  and  the  Maharaja  of 
Kashmir.  By  this  treaty  it  was  agreed  that  an 
English  agency  should  be  established  at  Gilgit  on 
the  northern  frontier.  This  position  was  to  be  gar- 
risoned by  Kashmir  troopers,  for  the  purpose  of 
observing  and  reporting  on  Russian  intrigues  and 
tribal  movements  in  the  scarcely  known  tracts  lying 
between  Kashmir  and  the  Pamirs.  This  agency  was 
withdrawn  in  1 88 1 , but  re-established  under  Lord 
Lansdowne  in  1889,  with  instructions  that  the  Resi- 
dent was  from  time  to  time  to  visit  Chitral,  and  if 
possible  open  up  a road  thence  to  Peshawar. 

In  August,  1892,  the  Mehtar,  or  ruler,  of  Chitral 
died.  His  second  son,  aged  twenty-five,  Afzal-ul- 
Mulk,  murdered  all  his  brothers  within  reach,  and 
sent  word  to  the  Viceroy  that  he  had  been  acknow- 
ledged chief  with  the  “ unanimous  consent  of  his 
brothers,”  requesting  at  the  same  time  that  an 
English  agent  should  be  sent  to  Chitral. 

It  was  not  long  before  the  new  chieftain  was 
deposed  by  his  uncle,  Sher  Afzal,  who  was  in  turn 
driven  out  from  Chitral  by  the  old  Mehtar’s  eldest 
son,  Nizam-ul-Mulk,  who  had  returned  from  Gilgit, 
where  he  had  won  the  favour  of  the  agent,  Colonel 
Durand.  Sher  Afzal  retired  to  Badakshan,  where 
he  became  a pensioner  of  the  Amir  of  Afghanistan, 
and  Surgeon-Major  Robertson  was  deputed  by  the 
Viceroy  to  visit  Chitral  and  report  on  the  state  of 
its  affairs. 

While  the  British  Government  was  considering  the 
policy  most  expedient  to  pursue  with  regard  to  the 


34« 


l.XDIA  UNDER  THE  CROWN. 


state  the  question  suddenly  developed  fresh  compli- 
cations from  the  fact  that  the  new  chief,  Nizam-ul- 
Miilk,  was,  on  the  1st  of  January,  1895,  shot  at  a 
hunting  party  at  the  instigation  of  Ami'r-ul-Mulk,  his 
half-brother. 

The  Amir  of  Afghanistan  had  undertaken,  by  the 
Durand  Agreement  of  November  12,  1893,  not  to 
interfere  with  Chitral,  but,  strange  to  say,  when 
Umra  Khan,  Chief  of  Jandol,  a neighbouring  state 
lying  between  Chitral  and  Peshawar,  attempted  in 
the  confusion  to  seize  Chitral,  he  was  joined,  on 
February  2 1st,  by  Slier  Afzal,  who  had  somehow 
escaped  from  the  custody  of  the  Amir. 

Four  days  later  the  fickle  tribesmen  of  Chitral 
joined  the  two  insurgent  chieftains,  and  raised  the 
standard  of  revolt  against  their  new  chief  and  his 
English  supporters.  Surgeon-Major  Robertson  was 
driven  into  the  fort,  and  on  the  13th  of  February  wrote 
that  he  was  holding  out  with  240  men  and  had  ample 
supplies  for  three  months.  On  the  3rd  of  March  200 
Kashmir  infantry,  under  Captain  Campbell,  advanced 
from  the  fort  to  reconnoitre  the  position  of  the  enemy. 
They  were  driven  back  with  a loss  of  twenty-three 
killed  and  thirty  wounded.  Surgeon-Captain  Whit- 
church bravely  won  the  Victoria  Cross  for  bearing 
Captain  Baird,  who  was  mortally  wounded,  through 
the  attacking  enemy  three  miles  back  to  the  fort. 

Cut  off  from  the  outside  world,  the  defenders 
gallantly  held  the  fort  from  March  3rd  to  April  17th, 
in  which  time  101  of  their  number  were  wounded,  40 
fatally.  The  full  strength  of  the  garrison  consisted 
of  99  men  of  the  14th  Sikhs,  301  of  the  Kashmir 


MARCH  OF  COLOSEL  KELLY. 


349 


Infantry,  under  the  command  of  Surgeon-Major 
Robertson,  the  agent,  Captains  Townshend  and 
Campbell,  Lieutenants  Gurdon  and  Harley,  and 
Surgeon-Captain  Whitchurch. 

On  the  19th  of  March  orders  were  given  for  the 
1st  Division  of  the  1st  Army  Corps,  15,000  strong, 
to  march  from  near  Peshawar  through  the  Swat  and 
Dir  country  and  attack  the  rebels  from  the  south. 

On  the  1st  of  April  the  army,  fully  equipped 
and  provisioned,  started  under  Lieutenant-General 
Sir  Robert  Low.  On  the  3rd  of  April  the  Mala- 
kand  Pass,  3,500  feet  high,  was  forced,  and  12,000 
of  the  enemy  driven  from  a strong  position  they 
tried  to  defend.  Further  on  the  Panjkora  River 
had  risen  and  was  impassable.  A bridge  was  built, 
and  Lieutenant-Colonel  Battve,  after  a gallant  day’s 
fighting,  in  which  he  succeeded  in  driving  the  tribes 
from  the  hills  on  the  far  side  of  the  river,  fell  mortally 
wounded  in  the  hour  of  victory.  On  the  17th  of 
April  the  advancing  force  from  the  south  defeated 
Umra  Khan.  In  the  meantime  Colonel  Kelly  had 
marched  from  Gilgit,  two  hundred  miles  north-east 
of  Chitral,  with  four  officers  and  two  hundred  men 
of  the  Pioneers  crossed  over  the  Sandur  Pass,  1 2,400 
feet  high,  through  4^  feet  of  snow,  and  on  the 
5th  of  April  reached  Lashpur,  thirty  of  his  men 
having  been  struck  down  with  snow-blindness,  and 
twenty-six  having  fallen  frostbitten  during  the  march. 
On  the  9th  Mastuj  was  occupied,  its  garrison  relieved, 
and  the  force,  now  increased  to  640  men,  drove  the 
enemy  before  them  and  reached  Chitral  by  the  20th 
of  April,  there  to  find  that  the  besieging  force  had 


350  INDIA  UNDER  THE  CROWN. 

fled  and  that  the  garrison  was  released  from  its  long 
imprisonment  of  forty-seven  days. 

Chitral  once  subdued,  the  same  question,  which  has 
run  through  all  Indian  politics  since  the  time  when 
Lord  Lawrence  formulated  his  policy  of  non-inter- 
vention with  territories  and  chieftains  lying  outside 
the  strict  limits  of  British  India,  once  again  pressed 
for  solution.  Should  the  British  force  be  withdrawn 
from  Chitral,  or  should  the  position  be  strengthened 
and  improved  by  making  a road  from  Peshawar 
and  placing  an  agent  permanently  at  the  Mehtar’s 
capital  ? On  the  one  hand  it  was  urged  that  an 
advanced  position  on  the  very  borders  of  Russian 
territory,  the  opening-up  of  the  country  by  roads 
and  consequent  civilisation  of  the  savage  races, 
would  only  prepare  the  way  for  a Russian  advance 
from  Bokhara  towards  Kashmir,  Gilgit  and  the 
Punjab.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was  contended  that 
an  English  agent  and  English  troops  at  Chitral 
would  effectually  frustrate  any  possible  intrigues  or 
sudden  incursions  from  beyond  the  passes  of  the 
Hindu  Kush. 

The  question  received  the  full  attention  of  the  most 
experienced  officials  in  India  and  England.  On  the 
13th  of  June,  1895,  Sir  Henry  Fowler,  then  Secretary 
of  State  for  India  under  a Liberal  Government,  sent 
to  the  Viceroy  a telegram  directing  that  no  European 
force  or  diplomatic  agent  should  be  retained  at 
Chitral,  that  the  state  should  be  abandoned  to  a new 
native  ruler,  Shuja-ul-Mulk,  and  no  effort  made  to 
open  communications  with  it  from  Peshawar.  This 
decision  the  Government  of  India  regretted,  but, 


LIMITS  OF  BRITISH  TERRITORY.  351 

at  the  same  time,  loyally  accepted.  Before  action 
on  it  took  place  a Conservative  Government  came 
into  office,  and  on  the  8th  of  August  Lord  George 
Hamilton,  the  new  Secretary  of  State  for  India, 
reversed  the  policy  of  his  predecessor  and  tele- 
graphed to  the  Viceroy  that  Chitral  should  not  be 
abandoned,  and  that  a military  force  should  be  located 
near  at  hand  with  a political  agent  in  charge  so  that 
effectual  control  should  be  kept  over  the  passes. 
Chitral  thus  remains  the  most  advanced  post  in 
British  India,  guarding  the  passes  through  which 
Alexander  the  Great  probably  advanced  on  the  first 
historic  invasion  of  India — passes,  however,  through 
which  it  seems  absolutely  impossible  that  any  ad- 
vance in  modern  times  could  ever  be  contemplated 
or  considered  feasible. 

This  tendency  towards  expansion  of  British  terri- 
tory in  the  East  is  inevitable,  however  much  it  may 
be  regretted.  To  the  far  East  over  Burma  towards 
the  Mekong  River,  beyond  the  Indus  from  Chitral 
to  British  Baluchistan,  it  has  spread,  and  in  the  future 
it  must  as  certainly  extend  till  it  touches  the  boun- 
daries of  Russian  dominion.  Before  that  time  comes 
strange  changes  will  have  taken  place — changes  that 
must  shake  to  their  very  foundations  the  Empires  of 
the  West  and  decide  the  great  question  of  the  future  : 
the  contest  among  the  nations  of  Europe  for  final 
supremacy,  not  only  over  India  but  also  over  the 
further  East — a contest  in  which  the  East  must  in- 
evitably fall  vanquished  so  long  as  physical  force  is 
to  decide  the  pre-eminence  of  the  hardy  dwellers 
in  Northern  climes  over  their  effete  and  perhaps 


IXDIA  UNDER  THE  CROWN. 


352 

more  degenerate  brethren  in  the  enervating  regions 
of  tropical  lands. 

At  the  present  moment  the  whole  world  throbs 
to  its  centre  with  eagerness  to  enter  on  the  mighty 
contest — -a  contest  which  all  know  cannot  be  long 
delayed.  So  portentous  appear  to  be  the  coming 
changes  that  none  seems  to  know  whether  it  were 
wise  to  hope  that  some  solution  may  come  speedily 
or  that  for  a time  the  West  may  be  allotted  oppor- 
tunity to  reconsider  her  position  in  the  history  of  the 
world’s  civilisation  before  her  irresistible  material 
resources  are  again  sent  forth  to  bend  and  mould 
to  her  ways  the  sedate  and  placid  peoples  whose 
necks  are  already  bent  before  their  coming  con- 
querors. 


XVI. 

MORAL  AND  MATERIAL  PROGRESS  UNDER  BRITISH 
RULE. 

ENGLAND’S  mission  in  India  as  pioneer  in  implant- 
ing the  rudiments  of  Western  Civilisation,  nurtured 
under  the  dire  necessity  of  a struggle  for  existence  in 
which  only  the  fittest  tend  to  survive,  has  as  yet  but 
hardly  commenced.  The  extent  of  country  that  has 
fallen  under  her  sway  and  the  varied  people  she  there 
rules,  present  a problem  more  than  sufficient  to  tax  to 
the  utmost  the  resources  she  holds  at  her  command. 

According  to  the  last  Census  Report,  ably  com- 
piled by  the  Census  Commissioner,  Mr.  Baines,  the 
rule  of  the  British  in  India  extends  over  the  following 
provinces  and  feudatory  states,  the  latter  having  a 
larger  population  than  that  of  the  United  States, 
Haidarabad  alone  being  equal  in  extent  to  the 
whole  of  England  and  Scotland,  while  Rajputana 
and  Central  India  exceed  the  entire  German 
Empire. 


24 


353 


■r:  3't 


354 


PROGRESS  UNDER  BRITISH  RULE. 


Province,  State,  or  Agency. 

Area  in 
Square  Miles. 

Population, 

1891. 

Bengal  

I5b543 

71,346,987 

Madras  

141,189 

35,630,440 

(N.-W.  Provinces 

83,286 

34,254,254 

( Oudh  

24,217 

12,650,831 

Punjab  

110,667 

20,866,847 

f Bombay  

77,275 

15,985,270 

{ Sind 

47,7«9 

2,871,774 

Central  Provinces 

86,501 

10,784,294 

j Upper  Burma  

8.3,473 

2,946,933 

| Lower  Burma  

87,957 

4,658,627 

Assam  

49,004 

5,476,833 

Berar  

17,718 

2,897,491 

Ajmere  ...  ' ... 

2,711 

542,358 

Coorg  

1,583 

173,055 

( Aden  

80 

44,079 

■j  Quetta,  &c.  

— 

27,270 

(Andamans 

— 

15,609 

Total,  British  Provinces 

964,993 

221,172,952 

Haidarabad  

82,698 

11,537,040 

Raiputana 

130,268 

12,016,102 

Central  India  

77,808 

10,318,812 

Mysore  

27,936 

4,943,604 

Baroda  

8,226 

2,415,396 

Kashmir  

80,900 

2,543  952 

States  connected  with  Bombay 

69,045 

8,059,298 

„ „ Madras 

9,609 

3,700,622 

„ „ Central  Provinces 

29435 

2,160,511 

„ „ Bengal 

35,834 

3,296,379 

„ „ N.-W.  Provinces 

5,109 

792,491 

„ „ Punjab 

38,299 

4,263,280 

Fort  Steadman,  Shan  Outposts 

2,992 

Total,  Feudatory  States  

595,167 

66,050,479 

Grand  Total,  India  

1,560,160 

287,223,431 

India  not  only  exceeds  in  extent  the  whole  of 
Europe,  leaving  out  Russia,  but  its  people  are  divided 
one  from  the  other  in  race,  language,  and  physical 
characteristics,  as  greatly  as  are  the  varied  nationalities 
of  the  West.  In  religion  they  are  subdivided  as 
follows : — 


CENSUS  RETURNS. 


355 


R.ligion. 

Population  (1891). 

Brahmanic 

Animistic  

Sikh 

207,731,727 
9,280,467 
- -1,937.833 

Jain 

1,416,638 

Zoroastrian 

89,904 

Buddhist  

7,131,361 

Jew  

17,194 

Christian  

2,284,380 

Musalman  — ... 

- 57,321,164 

Minor  form>  

180 

Unreturned 

42,578 

Total  

287,223,431 

According  to  the  census  returns  they  are  grouped 
together  as  speaking  languages  belonging  to  the 
following  families : — 


Languages  by  Linguistic  groups — 

Population 

Returning. 

'A.  Aryo-Indic  

195,463,807 

B.  Dravidian 

52,964,620 

C.  Kolarian 

2,959,006 

D.  Gipsy  Dialects  

401,125 

E.  Khasi  

178,637 

F.  Tibeto  Barman 

7,293,928 

G.  Mon  Annam  

229,342 

H.  Taic,  or  Shan  

178,447 

Family  4 

J.  Maylayan 

4,084 

K.  Sinitic  

713,350 

L.  Japanese  

93 

M.  Aryo-Eranic  

1,329,428 

N.  Semitic 

55,534 

O.  Turanic 

659 

P.  Aryo-European 

245,745 

Q.  Basque  

1 

R.  Hamitic  or  Negro  

9,612 

Language  unrecognisable  

363 

Return  left  blank 

19,659 

Total  enumerated  bv  Parent  Tongue 

262,047,440 

Population  not  enumerated  by  Parent  Tongue 

25,175,991 

Tota'.  

287,223,431 

356  PROGRESS  UNDER  BRITISH  RULE. 

The  almost  incredible  ignorance  of  the  mass  of 
the  people  may  be  estimated  from  the  following 
figures  : — 


Number  able  to 

read  and  write  per 

Country. 

1,000  of  each  Sex 

Males. 

Females. 

United  States  (White)  

725 

706 

Ireland 

554 

501 

Ceylon 

269 

29 

United  States  ( Coloured ) 

254 

217 

India,  1881  

9i 

4 

„ 1891  

109 

6 

To  keep  this  vast  empire  in  peace,  and  resist  all 
possible  danger  of  invasion,  the  army,  according  to 
the  returns  of  1893-4,  has  a sanctioned  establishment 

as  follows  : — 


British  troops 

Miscellaneous  officers 
t Bengal 
Native  troops  J Madras 
( Bombay 


Total 

Corresponding  total 


73,o8o 

901 

84,513 

32,305 

28,818 

145,636 


...  219,617 


for  1892-3 218,786 


The  native  reserves  amount  to  a total  of  13,316, 
the  effective  strength  of  the  volunteers  being  25,908, 
with  19,294  contingents  from  feudatory  states,  or- 
ganised and  trained  by  British  officers  for  service  in 
the  field.  The  proportion  of  Europeans  to  natives  in 
the  regular  army  is  about  two  to  one,  and  about  equal 


INTERNAL  PEACE. 


357 


in  the  subsidiary  forces  of.  reserves,  volunteers,  and 
feudatory  contingents. 

Almost  the  whole  of  the  effective  artillery,  the  forts, 
and  arsenals  are  in  the  possession  of  British  troops, 
and  every  position  of  vantage  is  practically  unassail- 
able by  native  troops.  The  defences  of  Delhi  were 
in  1890  secured  against  all  possibility  of  attack,  and 
by  1891  the  railway  bridge  over  the  Jumna  was  pro- 
tected by  fortifications.  Similarly  Agra,  Cawnpur, 
Lucknow,  Allahabad,  and  all  chief  cities  where  dis- 
affection is  ever  to  be  feared,  have  been  so  secured  as 
to  furnish  safe  retreat  for  the  British  colony  in  case 
of  sudden  attack.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  in  future  no 
efforts  will  be  spared  for  the  necessary  extension  of 
similar  defences  and  construction  of  like  harbours  of 
refuge,  where  the  military  authorities,  after  full  con- 
sideration and  due  consultation  with  the  Civil  autho- 
rities, deem  them  imperative.  So  long  as  there  is 
danger  of  grave  disorder  arising  from  outbursts  of 
fanatical  zeal,  race  hatred,  or  lawless  lust,  which  may 
at  any  moment  occur  and  spread  far  and  wide,  in 
remote  and  at  present  unprotected  portions  of  India, 
it  is  the  first  duty  of  the  Government  to  see  that 
their  civil  officers  and  outlying  military  posts  are  not 
exposed  to  any  avoidable  risk  in  carrying  on  their 
duties  of  administration. 

While  the  internal  peace  of  India  has  been  secured, 
the  problem  of  defence  against  any  possible  attack 
from  the  north-west  or  east  still  occupies  the  earnest 
attention  of  the  Government. 

The  conquest  of  Sind  in  1843,  and  the  acquisition 
of  the  Punjab  in  1849,  advanced  the  boundaries  of 


35#  PROGRESS  UNDER  BRITISH  RULE. 

British  India  to  the  high  mountains  and  table-lands 
of  Khelat  and  Afghanistan.  From  the  west  of  Kashmir 
the  mountain  ranges,  running  south  for  1,200  miles  to 
Karachi,  the  seaport  town  of  Sind,  are  held  to  the 
northward  by  fierce,  fanatic  Pathdns,  to  the  southward 
by  more  tractable  Baluchi's,  who  submit  to  the  rule  of 
their  hereditary  chieftains,  both  races  together  being 
able  to  turn  out  some  200,000  fighting  men.  From 
Peshawar,  the  Khaibar  Pass  is  open  towards  Kabul  ; 
further  south  theTochi  and  Gumal  Passes  give  access 
to  Ghazni,  while  from  the  plains  of  Sind  the  Boldn 
Pass  leads  to  Quetta  and  Chaman,  thence  through 
the  Khojak  Pass  to  Kandahdr. 

The  route  from  the  Khaibar  Pass  was  secured,  in 
1893,  by  defensive  works  at  Peshawar,  by  entrench- 
ments and  batteries  stretching  miles  in  extent 
along  the  river  Indus  at  Attock,  and  further  back 
by  fortifications  at  Rdwal  Pindi,  extending  in  a 
quadrilateral  of  five  miles,  which  would  take  some 
10,000  men  to  defend.  At  the  other  passes  adequate 
precautions  for  defence  have  been  taken,  the  most 
important  being  those  in  connection  with  the  route 
from  Kandahdr  to  Quetta  on  to  the  plain  of  Sind,  with 
which  the  name  of  the  great  hero  diplomatist,  Sir 
Robert  Sandeman,  will,  so  long  as  the  British  Empire 
in  India  lasts,  be  ever  associated.  For  upwards  of 
400  miles  north,  from  the  sea  to  the  Indus,  the  ad- 
ministration of  the  Sind  frontiers  lay  in  the  hands  of 
the  Sind  Government,  whose  duty  it  was  to  watch 
the  Khan  of  Khelat  and  the  territories  over  which  he 
ruled,  a tract  of  country  larger  than  Great  Britain. 
These  lands  were  inhabited  by  Baluchi'  and  Brahui 


DEFEXCE. 


359 


tribes,  who  held  the  passes  and  roads  leading  from 
India  towards  Kandahar,  Herat,  and  Persia.  Through 
Sir  Robert  Sandeman’s  indomitable  perseverance 
and  strong  determination,  the  Khan  of  Khelat  was 
induced,  in  1876,  to  enter  into  a treaty  by  which 
he  agreed  not  only  to  refer  his  disputes  with  his 
feudatories  to  the  British  Government,  but  also  to 
allow  British  troops  to  occupy  Quetta,  a post  now 
almost  impregnable. 

After  the  Afghanistan  war  of  1878,  Sir  Robert 
Sandeman  succeeded  in  securing  the  districts  now 
known  as  British  Baluchistan,  included  in  1887  in 
British  territory.  In  1890  the  Zhob  Valley  was 
occupied,  and  the  Gumal  Pass  opened  up  for  traffic. 
Quetta  has  further  been  connected  with  Sibi  by 
two  railways,  one  through  the  Harnai  Valley  and 
one  through  the  Boldn  Pass  leading  to  Chaman  six 
miles  beyond  Quetta  by  a tunnel  2J  miles  long. 
The  difficulties  of  constructing  these  railways  have 
been  almost  insurmountable,  in  consequence  of  the 
ever-recurring  landslips  and  floods.  On  the  Mush- 
kaf  Valley  line,  in  the  Boldn  Pass,  upwards  of 
twenty  tunnels  had  to  be  constructed  in  a distance 
of  sixty  miles  ; lower  down  nine  bridges  were  swept 
away  in  1892;  in  other  places  the  rails  were  carried 
away  by  floods  and  had  to  be  relaid  nine  and  ten 
times ; while  in  other  parts  the  line  has  over  and 
over  again  been  covered  for  miles  by  landslips. 

While  every  available  effort  has  thus  been  put  for- 
ward to  make  the  frontiers  from  Karachi  to  Chitral 
unassailable  from  the  west,  the  north  is  secured  by 
the  mighty  mountain  ranges  of  the  Himalayas,  im- 


360  PROGRESS  UNDER  BRITISH  RULE. 

passable  for  an  invading  army,  and  possessing  peaks 
such  as  those  of  Kanchajanga  and  Mount  Everest, 
over  four  miles  in  height. 

On  the  south-east  the  conquest  of  Upper  Burma 
has  brought  the  British  dominions  in  touch  with  those 
of  the  French,  and  the  Mekong  River  now  forms  the 
boundary  between  these  two  rival  powers  in  the  East. 

To  the  north-east  the  limits  between  China  and 
Burma  were  satisfactorily  demarcated  in  1894,  the 
state  of  Kiang  Hung,  on  the  left  bank  of  the 
Mekong,  being  ceded  to  China,  and  the  state  of 
Kiang  Kheng  to  Siam.  By  handing  over  this  northern 
Shan  State  of  Kiang  Hung  along  the  banks  of  the 
Mekong,  to  China,  an  intermediate  zone  to  the  south 
was  left  to  form  a buffer  state  between  British  and 
French  boundaries.  By  the  declaration  of  January 
15,  1896,  between  France  and  England,  it  was  finally 
agreed  that,  “ From  the  mouth  of  the  Nam  Huok 
northwards  as  far  as  the  Chinese  frontier,  the  thalweg 
of  the  Mekong  shall  form  the  limits  of  the  possessions 
or  spheres  of  influence  of  Great  Britain  and  France.” 
This  closing  together  of  British  and  French  territories 
along  the  Mekong  will  entail  future  military  ex- 
penses and  possibly  give  rise  to  many  complicated 
questions  of  international  policy.  At  present  the 
most  pressing  problem  seems  to  be  the  necessity  of 
connecting  Burma  with  the  south  of  China  by  a 
railway  carried  through  the  Kiang  Hung  State,  so 
as  to  open  up  a new  and  important  route  to  tap  the 
mineral  and  agricultural  resources  of  India-China  and 
Yunnan. 

While  India  is  thus  almost  in  touch  on  its  north- 


THE  MEKONG. 


361 

west  and  south-east  frontiers  with  the  advancing 
soldiers  of  Russia  and  France,  and  therefore  com- 
pelled to  make  adequate  defence  against  all  possible 
risk  of  invasion  by  land,  the  great  seaports  Karachi, 


Bombay,  and  Calcutta  have  been  placed  in  a com- 
plete state  of  defence  against  naval  operations, 
leaving,  for  financial  and  other  reasons,  the  security 
of  Rangoon  and  minor  ports  a matter  for  serious 
though  future  consideration. 


362  PROGRESS  UNDER  BRITISH  RULE. 

Although  the  necessity  of  holding  India  free  from 
every  possible  and  probable  internal  disturbance  and 
safe  from  external  invasion  is  the  primary  duty  of 
a civilised  Government  without  which  none  of  its 
functions,  such  as  the  moral  and  material  advance- 
ment of  the  people  entrusted  to  its  charge,  can  be 
accomplished,  yet  there  may  be  limits  beyond  which 
no  Government,  with  a due  regard  to  financial  con- 
siderations, can  prudently  advance.  Military  strate- 
gists, if  left  unchecked  by  all  financial  considerations, 
could  only  find  the  actual  realisation  of  their  ideals 
in  making  the  defences  entrusted  to  their  care  abso- 
lutely impregnable  from  all  possible  combinations  of 
attack.  That  it  is  however  practically  impossible  to 
carry  out,  at  the  present  time,  many  admirable  and 
probably  necessary  schemes  for  defence  must  be 
admitted,  when  the  financial  position  of  India  is 
recognised  as  demanding  the  most  careful  considera- 
tion, and  even  scrutiny,  before  further  expenses  are 
incurred  without  the  very  gravest  necessity. 

The  first  note  of  financial  alarm  was  sounded  in 
the  year  1885,  when  it  was  proposed  to  increase  the 
army  in  India  by  10,000  British  and  20,000  native 
troops.  Since  then  the  average  annual  expenditure 
up  to  1892-3  on  special  defensive  works  has  been 
over  5,550,51 1 rupees,  while  the  cost  of  minor  military 
expeditions,  including  that  in  Upper  Burma  and  Mani- 
pur, has  exceeded  8|-  millions  of  tens  of  rupees,  the 
increase  on  army  effective  service  alone  being  12 
millions  of  tens  of  rupees  more  in  1892-3  than  it  was 
in  1882-3. 

In  addition  to  these  burdens  on  the  financial  re- 


FALL  OF  THE  RUPEE. 


363 


sources  of  India,  the  cost  of  civil  administration  has 
increased  by  nearly  3 millions  of  tens  of  rupees 
from  1882-3  to  1 894-5.  The  interest  on  public  debt 
has  grown  at  the  rate  of  3 millions  of  tens  of  rupees 
annually  during  the  last  twenty  years. 

Another  serious  item  to  be  considered  is  the  loss 
annually  incurred  from  exchange,  due  to  the  fact  that 
money  to  the  amount  of  16  millions  sterling  has  to 
be  remitted  from  India  to  England  in  order  to  pay 
for  home  charges,  such  as  interest  on  debt,  about 
2f  millions  ; interest  on  railway,  about  5!  millions  ; 
military  charges  and  pensions,  3 J millions ; civil 
pensions,  if  millions;  and  stores,  l|  millions.  The 
whole  of  this  is  paid  in  England  in  gold,  and  raised 
in  India  in  silver  rupees.  During  recent  years  the 
value  of  silver,  in  relation  to  gold,  has  fallen  con- 
siderably ; the  rupee,  instead  of  being  worth  2s.,  was 
valued  at  but  a little  over  thirteen  pence  in  1894-5. 
As  the  rupee  falls  in  value  or  purchases  less  gold,  more 
of  the  silver  revenue  of  India  has  to  be  sent  yearly  to 
England  ; the  loss  in  exchange,  in  1894-5,  amounted 
to  14,752,000  of  tens  of  rupees. 

By  Act  VIII.  of  1893  an  effort  was  made  to  stay 
the  falling  value  of  the  rupee,  and  if  possible  to 
facilitate  the  introduction  of  a gold  coinage  into 
India.  The  Indian  mints  were  closed  to  the  un- 
restricted coinage  of  silver  into  rupees  by  the  public; 
gold  at  the  same  time  being  accepted  at  the  Govern- 
ment treasuries  at  the  rate  of  one  sovereign  for  fifteen 
rupees,  or  gold  received  at  the  mint  at  the  ratio  of 
is.  4d.  for  the  rupee. 

The  revenues  of  India,  from  which  these  increasing 


364  PROGRESS  UNDER  BRITISH  RULE. 

expenses  of  the  army,  military  defences,  civil  ad- 
ministration, and  loss  by  exchange  have  to  be  met, 
are  raised  for  the  greater  part  from  that  portion  of 
the  population  least  able  to  bear  any  increase  of 
taxation. 

The  population  of  British  India  amounted  to 
221,172,952  in  1891 — an  increase  of  22,312,349  during 
the  ten  years  from  1881.  Two-thirds  of  this  vast 
population  live  by  agriculture,  the  land  revenue 
contributing  a total  of  25,492,300  of  tens  of  rupees 
out  of  a total  revenue  of  92,024,900  of  tens  of  rupees, 
f Budget  estimate  for  1894-5.)  This  agricultural 
population  is  as  a class  poor,  living  so  near  the  very 
verge  of  subsistence  that  a scarcity  prolonged  for  a 
year  gives  rise  to  widespread  distress,  bringing  many 
to  the  borders  of  starvation  ; a second  year’s  failure 
of  rain  results  in  a calamity  such  as  that  of  1876-8, 
when  four  millions  of  people  died  in  the  south,  not- 
withstanding every  effort  made  by  the  Government 
to  save  life. 

Nine-tenths  of  the  population  live  in  villages  not 
having  over  5,000  inhabitants,  and  four-fifths  live  in 
villages  not  possessing  1,000  inhabitants  ; the  average 
village  of  India  contains  about  363  inhabitants.  In 
each  village  there  is  the  hereditary  moneylender, 
eager  to  advance  money  to  the  cultivators  at  rates 
of  interest  varying  from  1 to  50  per  cent.,  on  the 
security  of  the  land  which,  since  the  advent  of  British 
rule  has  acquired  an  ever-increasing  value.  Under 
the  ancient  Hindu  law  no  moneylender  could  re- 
cover more  interest  on  a loan  than  the  amount  of 
principal  he  had  advanced  ; under  British  rule  he  can 


THE  MONEYLENDER.  365 

recover  to  any  amount,  and  to  recover  his  debt  sell, 
not  only  the  tenant’s  crop,  but  take  possession  of  the 
land  under  a judgment  decree.  In  native  states  this 
transfer  of  land  from  a cultivator  to  a creditor  is 
never  allowed;  in  villages  under  British  rule  it  obtains 
to  so  great  an  extent  that  Sir  Griffith  Evans  declared, 
during  the  course  of  a recent  debate  in  the  Legis- 
lative Council  of  Calcutta,  that  “ It  is  one  of  the 
grave  political  dangers  of  the  future.  . . . We  are 
ousting  the  warrior  peasantry  by  our  laws  and  courts 
to  put  in  the  usurer.  We  shall  want  our  army  one 
day  to  keep  him  in.” 

The  following  return  from  the  last  Census  report 
shows  the  extent  to  which  this  transfer  of  land,  from 
a law-abiding,  industrious  class  to  the  idle  and 
pampered  moneylenders,  has  taken  place  under 
British  laws : — 


Province. 

Per-centage  of 
Landholders. 
&c.,  amongst 

State. 

Per-centage  of 
Landholders, 
&c.,  amongst 

Che 
z Ww 

rt-g  3 
c Sep 

Money- 

lenders. 

Total  Noil- 
Agricultural 
Population. 

Money- 

lenders. 

Bombav 

9-24 

31-22 

Haidarabad 

521 

15-31 

Madras 

6-54 

1777 

Baroda  

568 

260 

Central  Provinces 

5-56 

36  74 

Bombay  States 

4'29 

5-51 

Berar  

2-54 

23'21 

Central  Province 

Assam  

38-02 

67.65 

States  

10-82 

13-48 

N.-W.  Provinces  ... 

18-28 

4657 

Punjab  

7-96 

18-37 

That  is  to  say,  two-thirds  of  the  usurers  of  Assam 
have  become  landholders,  and  nearly  one-half  of  them 


366  PROGRESS  UNDER  BRITISH  RULE. 

in  the  North-western  Provinces  have  ousted  the  original 
hereditary  cultivators,  who  have  taken  to  other  occu- 
pations, or  more  frequently  become  serfs  and  day- 
labourers.  Some  effort  was  made,  in  consequence 
of  the  agricultural  riots  in  Bombay,  to  protect  the 
cultivators  by  the  Deccan  Agriculturists’  Relief  Acts 
of  1 879  and  1881,  which  enacted  that  when  the  land 
was  mortgaged,  the  court,  on  failure  of  the  tenant  to 
repay  the  loan,  could  direct  the  land  to  be  culti- 
vated for  seven  years  for  the  benefit  of  the  money- 
lender, the  debtor  and  his  family  being  allowed 
sufficient  to  support  them  out  of  the  proceeds,  after 
which  time  the  land  is  restored  to  the  tenant. 
Nothing  short  of  a general  law,  applicable  to  all 
India,  will  adequately  meet  this  grave  danger. 

At  present  the  land-tax  is  paid  in  silver,'  often 
borrowed  by  the  cultivators,  in  the  absence  of » agri- 
cultural banks,  from  the  moneylenders  at  exorbitant 
rates  of  interest.  So  long  as  this  method  of  collecting 
the  revenue  at  fixed  dates  exists,  and  the  people  are 
not  allowed  the  option  of  commuting  their  rents  for 
a payment  in  grain,  or  prohibited  by  law  from  part- 
ing with  their  rights  and  interests  in  the  land  they 
hold,  it  is  hopeless,  if  not  actually  fraudulent,  to 
endeavour  to  raise  a higher  revenue  from  the  smaller 
cultivators. 

The  opium  revenue,  chiefly  on  opium  grown  on 
about  half  a million  acres  in  Benares  and  Berar, 
fell  from  over  gl  millions  of  tens  of  rupees  in  1884 
to  under  6|  millions  of  tens  of  rupees  in  1894.  This 
source  of  income,  if  it  does  not  finally  disappear,  will, 
for  a variety  of  causes,  be  liable  to  still  further  de- 


SOURCES  OF  REVENUE. 


367 


crease,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  the  Report  of 
the  Opium  Commission,  presented  on  the  16th  of 
April,  1895,  showed  that  no  evil  effects  were  to  be 
anticipated  from  the  rational  use  of  the  drug  by 
Eastern  people. 

While  the  tax  on  opium  is  chiefly  paid  by  the 
Chinese  consumer,  the  revenue  derived  from  the 
Government  monopoly  of  the  sale  of  salt,  whether 
imported  from  Cheshire,  or  made  by  evaporation  of 
salt  water  in  shallow  tanks  along  the  seashore,  or 
collected  from  the  salt  lakes  of  Rajputana,  or  dug 
from  the  salt  hills  of  the  Punjab,  is  paid  by  the 
Indian  consumer,  who  by  a series  of  irritating  laws  is 
prohibited  from  engaging  in  the  simple  manufacture 
of  an  article  so  necessary  for  the  health  of  an 
agricultural  community  and  their  cattle.  The  total 
revenue  derived  by  Government  from  this  monopoly 
amounted  to  8,346,200  tens  of  rupees,  in  1894  raised 
from  a duty  of  6s.  9d.  per  cwt.,  and  the  cost  of  salt 
to  a family  of  five  may  be  estimated  at  about  two 
rupees  annually.  The  excise  duties  bring  in  but  5^ 
millions  of  tens  of  rupees,  and  as  tobacco  is  free 
of  duty,  the  incidence  falls  at  about  fourpence  per 
head,  while  in  England  it  amounts  to  six  times  as 
much. 

It  can  thus  be  seen  that  there  is  but  little  hope  of 
any  great  increase  of  revenue  in  the  immediate 
future.  Sir  David  Barbour,  during  the  course  of  the 
International  Bimetallic  Conference  in  1894,  summed 
up  the  financial  position  of  India  as  follows : “ An 
Eastern  country  governed  in  accordance  with  ex- 
pensive Western  ideas,  an  immense  and  poor  popu- 


368  PROGRESS  UNDER  BRITISH  RULE. 

lation,  a narrow  margin  of  possible  additional  tax- 
ation, claims  for  additional  expenditure  greatly  in 
excess  of  possible  additional  revenue,  a constant 
tendency  for  expenditure  to  outgrow  revenue,  a 
system  of  government  in  India  favourable  to  increase 
of  and  unfavourable  to  reduction  of  expenditure,  no 
financial  control  by  intelligent  and  well-informed 
public  opinion,  either  in  India  or  in  England.” 

At  present  the  ordinary  appeal  in  all  these  matters 
is  to  the  Secretary  of  State  for  India  who  is  aided 
by  a Council  of  fifteen  members  appointed  for  a term 
of  ten  years,  the  members  being  mostly  chosen  on 
account  of  their  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  affairs 
of  India,  where  they  have  held  high  office.  By  the 
Act  of  1858  which  transferred  the  Government  of 
India  to  the  Crown,  the  Secretary  of  State  in  Council 
has  control  over  the  expenditure  of  the  revenues  of 
India.  In  pressing  matters,  where  secrecy  and  de- 
spatch are  required,  such  as  those  of  foreign  policy, 
the  making  of  war,  or  the  affairs  of  native  states,  the 
Secretary  of  State  acts  independently  of  his  Council. 

In  India  the  Governor-General,  commonly  called 
Viceroy,  and  his  Council  are  appointed  by  the  Crown 
for  a term  which  custom  has  loosely  fixed  at  five 
years.  The  Council  consists  of  five  members  ; two 
nominated  from  the  Civil  Service,  the  third  a mili- 
tary officer,  the  fourth  a barrister  in  charge  of  the 
legislative  department,  and  the  fifth  a member  in 
charge  of  the  finances.  An  additional  member  by 
an  Act  of  1874  may  be  appointed  for  the  charge  of 
public  work,  and  the  Commander-in-Chief  is  always 
an  extraordinary  member. 


ADMIX fS  TRA  TIOS. 


369 


With  the  vote  of  the  Viceroy  a war  policy  can 
usually  find  the  support  of  a majority  in  the  Council 
capable  of  overruling  any  financial  remonstrance  or 
opposition. 

The  Legislative  Council  consists  of  the  above 
Executive  Council,  strengthened  by  the  addition  of 
from  ten  to  sixteen  members,  of  whom  not  more 
than  six  may  be  officials. 

By  Lord  Cross’s  Act  of  1892,  the  members  of  the 
Legislative  Council  of  the  Governor-General,  as  well 
as  those  of  the  Local  Governments  in  Madras,  Bom- 
bay, Bengal,  North-west  Provinces,  and  Oudh,  have 
been  granted  the  privilege  of  discussing,  and  asking 
questions  on  any  financial  statement,  but  members  are 
by  the  Act  forbidden  to  propose  any  resolution,  or  to 
take  any  division  in  respect  of  any  financial  question. 

Madras  and  Bombay,  including  Sind,  are  each 
administered  by  a local  Governor,  appointed  by 
the  Crown,  with  an  Executive  and  Legislative 
Council  ; Bengal  is  ruled  by  a Governor-General 
with  an  Executive  and  Legislative  Council,  likewise 
the  North-west  Provinces,  while  the  Punjab  has  no 
Legislative  Council,  Assam  and  Burma  and  the  Central 
Provinces  being  governed  by  a Chief  Commissioner. 

For  internal  administration  and  civil  and  criminal 
jurisdiction  British  India  is  subdivided  into  250 
districts,  each  district,  averaging  in  extent  some  3,859 
square  miles,  presided  over  by  a senior  member  of 
the  Covenanted  Civil  Service  and  two  or  three  junior 
Covenanted  assistants.  These  Covenanted  Civilians 
are  the  successors  of  the  former  writers  or  factors 
appointed  and  sent  out  by  the  East  India  Company. 

25 


370 


PROGRESS  UNDER  BRITISH  RULE. 


By  degrees,  as  the  Company  acquired  territory,  the 
factors  assumed  administrative  functions,  and  in 
1800,  Lord  Wellesley  founded  his  college  at  Fort 
William  for  their  systematic  training.  In  1805 
the  Company,  not  approving  of  Lord  Wellesley’s 
efforts,  founded  their  own  college  at  Haileybury, 
where  civilians  were  educated  for  two  years  before 
being  allowed  to  proceed  to  India.  In  1853  the 
power  of  nominating  their  officers  was  withdrawn 
from  the  Company,  and  the  appointments  filled  by 
candidates  selected  by  open  competition,  a system 
which  still  continues. 

In  order  to  extend  the  employment  of  natives  in 
the  higher  administrative  posts,  usually  reserved  for 
Covenanted  Civilians,  a statute  of  1870  empowered 
the  authorities  in  India  to  nominate  natives  to  these 
appointments,  and  by  the  rules  drawn  up  in  1879, 
one-sixth  of  the  appointments  made  each  year  were 
reserved  for  them.  The  result  of  the  appointments, 
made  in  accordance  with  these  rules,  was  found  not 
to  be  so  satisfactory  as  had  been  hoped.  A Public 
Service  Commission,  appointed  in  1886,  therefore 
recommended  that  the  rules  of  1879  should  be 
annulled  and  a new  service  of  the  higher  native 
officials  in  the  Executive  and  Judicial  services  con- 
stituted, to  be  called  the  Provincial  Civil  Service,  to 
which  about  one-sixth  of  the  appointments  usually 
held  by  the  Covenanted  Civil  Service  should  be  open. 
Of  the  824  ordinary  appointments  held  by  members 
of  the  Covenanted  Civil  Service  93  were  thrown 
open  in  1892-3  to  selected  native  officers  of  the 
Provincial  Service. 


CIVIL  SERVICE  EXAMINATIONS. 


3/i 


On  the  2nd  of  June,  1893,  the  House  of  Commons 
passed  a resolution  that  “ all  open  competitive 
examinations  heretofore  held  in  England  alone  for 
appointments  to  the  Civil  Services  of  India  shall 
henceforth  be  held  simultaneously  in  India  and 
England,  such  examinations  in  both  countries  being 
identical  in  their  nature,  and  all  who  compete  being 
finally  classified  in  one  list  according  to  merit.”  The 
Government  of  India,  to  whom  this  resolution  was 
referred,  pointed  out  to  the  Home  Government  the 
danger  of  lowering  the  present  number — some  731 
— of  higher  European  officials  now  employed  in 
governing  a populace  of  217J  millions  of  natives. 
It  urged  that  these  Covenanted  Civilians  “ represent 
the  British  Government  in  India.  In  the  eyes  of 
the  people  they  are  the  British  Government.  It  is 
to  their  personal  influence,  their  impartiality,  justice, 
and  efficiency,  their  physical  and  moral  fitness,  that 
the  due  administration  of  the  Empire  is  entrusted. 
Upon  them,  and  not  immediately  upon  military  force, 
our  strength  rests.  Any  weakening  of  their  influence 
or  deterioration  of  their  efficiency  would  imply  a 
relaxation  of  the  restraint  of  Government, and  a rever- 
sion pro  tanto  to  the  condition  from  which  the  country 
emerged  only  when  it  came  into  British  possession.” 

The  matter  was  finally  summed  up  in  the  follow- 
ing Memorandum  forwarded  by  the  Government  of 
India  to  the  Secretary  of  State  on  the  1st  of 
November,  1893  : — 

“ In  the  discussions  in  the  House  of  Commons  and 
elsewhere  frequent  mention  has  been  made  of  the  pro- 
visions of  section  87  of  the  Statute  3 & 4 Will.  IV., 


372  PROGRESS  UNDER  BRITISH  RULE. 

c.  85,  and  of  the  declaration  embodied  in  Her  Majesty 
the  Queen’s  Proclamation  of  November  1,  1838. 
The  first  of  these  enacted  ‘ that  no  native  of  the 
said  territories,  nor  any  natural-born  subject  of  Her 
Majesty  resident  therein,  shall,  by  reason  only  of  his 
religion,  place  of  birth,  descent,  colour,  or  any  of 
them,  be  disabled  from  holding  any  place,  office,  or 
employment  under  the  said  company.’  This  pro- 
vision, as  is  evident  from  its  language,  conveys  no 
pledge  of  employment  to  any  class,  but  merely 
declares  that  no  person  shall  be  subject  to  a dis- 
ability on  account  of  the  matters  stated.  As 
observed  by  the  Court  of  Directors,  its  object  was 
‘ not  to  ascertain  qualification,  but  to  remove  dis- 
qualification.’ The  same  Statute  (sections  103-107) 
limited  the  supply  of  ‘ the  vacancies  in  the  civil 
establishments  in  India  ’ to  candidates  nominated  for 
admission  to  the  East  India  Company’s  College  at 
Haileybury  ; and  at  that  time  it  need  hardly  be  said 
that  under  this  method  of  ‘ providing  for  the  due 
qualification  of  persons  to  be  employed  in  the  Civil 
Service  of  the  Company,’  the  admission  of  natives  of 
India  to  that  service  could,  under  any  conceivable 
circumstances,  scarcely  have  been  contemplated. 
Her  Majesty’s  Proclamation  of  1858,  while  an- 
nouncing Her  Royal  will  and  pleasure  that,  ‘so  far 
as  may  be , her  subjects,  of  whatever  race  and  creed, 
be  freely  and  impartially  admitted  to  offices  in  Her 
service,  the  duties  of  which  they  may  be  qualified  by 
their  education,  ability,  and  integrity  duly  to  dis- 
charge,’ similarly  limited,  in  the  words  italicised,  the 
admission  of  natives  of  India  to  such  offices  by  the 


India  civil  service. 


373 


paramount  necessities  of  the  Empire.  The  Statute 
of  the  same  year  (21  & 22  Viet.,  c.  106,  s.  32), 
under  which  appointments  to  the  Indian  Civil 
Service  are  still  regulated,  evidently  contemplated 
such  appointments  being  made  according  to  the 
results  of  an  examination  conducted  in  London 
under  the  superintendence  of.  the  Civil  Service  Com- 
missioners. And  it  was  in  order  to  give  effect  to  the 
Proclamation  of  1858,  in  such  manner  as  to  counter- 
act, so  far  as  might  be , the  difficulties  imposed  by  the 
Statute  of  1858  on  natives  of  India  in  coming  to 
London  to  be  examined,  that  the  Statute  of  1870 
was  passed  into  law.  This  Statute  is  restricted  in 
its  operation  to  natives  of  India.  While  other 
natural-born  subjects  of  Her  Majesty  can  gain 
admission  to  the  sendee  only  by  the  door  provided 
by  the  Act  of  1838,  natives  of  India  need  not  have 
recourse  to  that  mode  of  entrance,  but  can  be 
admitted — on  proof  of  ‘ their  education,  ability,  and 
integrity  ’ — by  the  procedure  laid  down  in  the  Act 
of  1870.  But  the  qualification  expressed  in  the 
Proclamation  of  1858 — ‘so  far  as  may  be’ — still 
holds  good  ; and  although  the  Government  of  India 
for  the  last  twenty  years  have  assiduously  endea- 
voured to  promote  the  entrance  into  the  higher 
offices  of  the  Indian  Public  Service  of  duly  qualified 
natives,  the  necessities  of  our  position  in  the  country 
continue  to  limit  the  possibilities  of  such  admission.” 
According  to  the  last  Census  of  1891  there  were 
but  90,169  English,  Scotch,  or  Irish  in  India  out  of 
the  population  of  288J  millions.  In  the  Provincial 
Serv  ices  there  were  2,449  natives  of  India  employed 


374 


PROGRESS  UNDER  BRITISH  RULE. 


in  higher  judicial  and  executive  work.  Altogether, 
out  of  114,150  appointments  carrying  an  annual 
salary  of  over  100  tens  of  rupees,  97  per  cent,  were 
held  by  natives  of  India.  The  full  details  show  that 
there  were  2,395,162  persons  connected  with  the 
administration;  118,135  employed  in  local  adminis- 
tration, and  3,086,856  in  village  sendee. 

The  administration  of  India,  while  yearly  giving 
increased  scope  for  the  employment  of  natives  of 
recognised  ability,  must  be  supervised  by  European 
officers  who,  by  their  independence  from  the  rivalries 
ever  recurring  between  conflicting  religious  bodies 
and  by  their  freedom  from  race  antipathies,  are  able 
to  act  impartially,  and  with  determination  in  the  sup- 
pression of  local  disorder  or  more  serious  outbreaks. 

In  place  of  the  great  inland  cities  of  old,  such 
as  Agra,  Delhi,  Allahabad,  Benares,  and  Lucknow, 
where  emperors  once  reigned  and  priests  held  sway, 
surrounded  by  all  the  glamour  of  Oriental  splendour 
and  sacerdotal  pomp,  great  seaport  centres  of  com- 
mercial activity  and  Western  enterprise  have  steadily 
grown  to  take  their  part  in  the  history  of  the  world’s 
commerce  : Calcutta,  with  its  population  greater  than 
that  of  Glasgow;  Bombay,  with  a population  exceed- 
ing that  of  Leeds  and  Sheffield ; and  Madras,  possess- 
ing a population  more  numerous  than  that  of  Dublin. 

In  1856  there  were  but  300  miles  of  railway  open 
in  British  India;  by  1871  the  three  great  modern 
cities  of  Calcutta,  Bombay,  and  Madras  had  been 
placed  in  railway  communication  with  each  other, 
since  which  time  the  land  has  been  traversed  by  a 
complete  system  of  subsidiary  lines  opening  up  to 


RAILWAYS,  ROADS,  AND  SANITATION.  375 

commercial  enterprise  the  most  important  routes. 
The  total  length  of  rail  sanctioned  and  opened  up 
by  the  31st  of  March,  1895,  was  21,072%  miles,  while 
there  were  18,855^  miles  ready  for  traffic,  and  it  is 
certain  that  a great  increase  may  be  looked  for  in  the 
immediate  future,  from  the  fact  that  a Parliamentary 
Committee  laid  down,  in  1884,  the  requirements  of 
India  at  no  less  than  60,000  miles  of  rail.  Of 
227  millions  sterling  expended  up  to  1892  on  the 
construction  of  these  railways,  the  Indian  Govern- 
ment provided  the  sum  of  153  millions  sterling — an 
investment  which  would  now  show  a fair  profit  were 
it  not  that  the  earnings  are  in  silver,  and  5 per  cent, 
interest  was  guaranteed  on  money  raised  in  England 
for  the  construction  of  the  earlier  lines. 

At  the  same  time  roads  well  constructed,  bridged, 
and  metalled  along  their  entire  course  have  replaced 
the  few  tracks,  known  as  trunk  roads,  constructed 
under  native  rule.  The  chief  towns  have  also  been 
drained,  placed  in  a sanitary  condition,  and  as  often 
as  possible  provided  with  an  abundant  supply  of 
pure  drinking  water  brought  from  storage  areas  by 
means  of  engineering  works  which  rival,  in  many 
cases,  anything  of  a similar  character  possessed  by 
cities  of  the  West.  Thus  Bombay  is  now  supplied 
with  water  from  the  Tansa  Reservoir,  the  construc- 
tion of  which  commenced  in  1886  and  was  finished 
in  1892  at  a cost  of  ,£1,500,000.  In  order  to  carry 
out  this  scheme  an  artificial  lake,  from  six  to  seven 
square  miles  in  area,  was  formed  in  the  hills  about 
fifty-five  miles  north-west  of  Bombay,  by  construct- 
ing a dam  almost  two  miles  long  across  a natural 


376 


PROGRESS  UXDER  BRITISH  RULE. 


valley  where  the  reservoir  was  formed.  The  water 
was  conveyed  through  masonry  conduits,  over  bridges, 
and  through  four  miles  of  tunnels  to  Bombay  in  quan- 
tities sufficient  to  supply  the  town  with  upwards  of 
20,000,000  gallons  daily. 

Equally  important  are  the  great  engineering  works 
that  have  been  carried  out  for  distributing  the  surplus 
water  of  rivers  and  reservoirs  to  such  tracts  as  are 
suitable  for  artificial  irrigation,  in  order  that  the  food 
supply  of  the  country  may  be  increased,  and  practical 
immunity  afforded  against  famine.  Over  13,000,000 
acres  of  land  now  receive  irrigation  from  artificial 
sources  of  supply,  the  water  being  distributed  by 
over  16,000  miles  of  main  and  branch  canals  and 
24,000  miles  of  minor  channels,  of  which  16,000  are 
navigable,  upwards  of  32  millions  sterling  having  been 
expended  by  the  Government  on  these  works  alone. 

The  most  remarkable  project  undertaken  by 
Government  for  the  purpose  of  irrigating  an  insuffi- 
ciently supplied  area,  is  that  known  as  the  Periyar 
Project  in  South  India,  only  recently  completed. 
The  Periyar  River  had  from  of  old  carried  off  the 
surplus  rainfall  from  the  western  ghats  of  Tra van- 
core  to  the  sea  near  Cochin.  The  clouds  borne  in 
from  the  sea  pour  down  their  rain  on  these  western 
barriers  to  the  extent  of  100  inches  of  rain  yearly,  the 
eastern  side  receiving  but  a fitful  supply  carried  off 
by  the  slow-flowing  Vaiga  River  through  the  rich 
lands  of  Madura  and  Ramnad,  towards  the  east 
coast.  The  bold  idea  was  conceived  of  diverting 
the  excess  flood  of  the  Periyar  River  from  its  usual 
course  to  the  west,  and  leading  it  by  a tunnel 


THE  PERIYAR  PROJECT. 


377 


through  the  mountains  into  the  Yaiga  River,  so  that 
the  lowland  plains  of  Madura  and  Ramnad  might 
receive  the  benefit  of  the  copious  supply  of  rain 
falling  on  the  Travancore  Mountains. 

A dam,  155  feet  high,  1,200  feet  long,  and  166 
feet  wide  at  its  base,  was  constructed  across  the 
upper  valley  of  the  Periyar  River.  An  artificial 
lake  was  thereby  formed  in  the  western  mountains 
capable  of  retaining  over  13,000  millions  of  cubic 
feet  of  surplus  water.  The  water  of  the  lake  was 
then  carried  in  a deep  channel  for  5,400  feet  north- 
ward towards  a tunnel,  pierced  in  the  mountains,  ij 
miles  long,  12  feet  wide,  through  which  it  was  led 
towards  the  Vaiga  River  to  flow  east  and  be  dis- 
tributed by  minor  works  over  1 50,000  acres  of  land 
in  Madura  and  Ramnad. 

Concurrently  with  the  rapid  increase  of  railways, 
roads,  and  navigable  canals,  the  mineral  resources  of 
the  country  are  being  rapidly  developed. 

The  first  coal  mine,  worked  under  British  methods, 
was  opened  at  Raniganj  in  1820.  Since  then  mines 
have  been  worked  in  Sind,  the  Xorth-west  Provinces, 
Oudh,  Rajputana,  Mysore,  and  Kashmir.  In  1880 
the  total  output  from  Bengal  and  the  Central  Pro- 
vinces, then  the  only  sources  of  supply,  was  1,019,793 
tons.  In  1894  the  output  reached  2,774,093  tons, 
from  nine  well-recognised  centres  of  supply.  During 
the  past  four  years  the  import  of  coal  into  India,  where 
it  is  sent  at  merely  ballast  rates,  fell  from  656,867 
tons  to  591,007  tons,  and  it  appears  certain  that 
before  long  India  will  be  able  to  supply  sufficient  coal 
not  only  for  her  own  wants,  but  even  for  exportation. 


378  PROGRESS  UNDER  BRITISH  RULE. 

The  supply  of  petroleum,  especially  from  Burma 
and  Assam,  and  in  a minor  degree  from  the  Punjab 
and  Baluchistan,  is  increasing,  as  may  be  seen  from 
the  following  return  : — 


Produced  in 

JL 

1SS8. 

1891. 

1892. 

1893. 

Burma  

Baluchistan 

Punjab  

Assam  

Gallons. 

2,794,000 

34,000 

2,000 

Gallons. 

5,793,000 

138,000 

2,000 

23,000 

Gallons. 

8,698,000 

3.000 

2.000 
22,000 

Gallons. 

10,276,000 

2,000 

82,000 

Total 

2,830,000 

6,136,000 

8,725,000 

10,360,000 

The  gold  mines  of  India  also  yield  satisfactory  and 
promising  returns,  the  output  from  the  eight  principal 
mines  of  Mysore  being  as  follows  : — 


1888. 

1892. 

1893. 

1894. 

Quantity  of  gold  ex- 
tracted   

Ounces. 

35,034 

Ounces. 

163,188 

Ounces. 

207,135 

Ounces. 

209,714 

Approximate  value  of 
gold  extracted 

Rx. 

193,059 

Rx. 

980,000 

Rx. 

1,449,000 

Rx. 

1,540,000 

Although  iron  is  smelted  as  a local  industry  in 
many  parts  of  India,  and  the  ore  is  found  in  great 
richness  in  many  places,  it  is  only  now  worked  after 
European  methods  at  Barrackpur  with  any  degree 
of  commercial  success. 

The  modern  development  of  India  as  a factor  in 
the  commercial  history  of  the  world  may  be  said  to 
date  from  the  year  1822,  when  the  idea  of  trading 


THE  SUEZ  CANAL. 


379 


from  London  to  the  East  by  means  of  steam  navi- 
gation was  first  proposed,  although  it  was  not  until 
the  16th  of  August,  1825,  that  the  first  steamer,  the 


Enterprise , of  479  tons  register,  reached  Calcutta, 
after  a long  journey  of  106  days. 

In  1840  Ferdinand  de  Lesseps  conceived  the 


380  PROGRESS  UNDER  BRITISH  RULE. 

idea  of  carrying  out  the  project  of  joining  the  Red 
Sea  to  the  Mediterranean  by  a canal  100  miles  long 
from  Suez  to  Port  Said,  so  as  to  once  more  bring 
the  commerce  of  the  East  to  its  ancient  route  and 
restore  prosperity  to  the  cities  of  the  Mediterranean 
ports.  The  opposition  of  England  on  political  grounds 
to  the  construction  of  the  canal  forced  French  and 
other  foreign  capitalists  to  raise  the  requisite  sum 
for  the  carrying  out  of  the  project.  By  the  17th  of 
November,  1869,  the  canal  was  opened  for  naviga- 
tion, £20,000,000  sterling  having  been  spent  cm  its 
construction.  On  the  25th  of  November,  1875,  the 
English  Government  purchased  shares  to  the  extent 
of  £4,000,000  in  the  Suez  Canal,  where  the  interests  of 
the  English  had  become  so  predominant  that  out  of 
3,425  ships  passing  in  1890,  70  per  cent,  were  British. 

The  growth  in  trade  that  has  ensued,  between  the 
United  Kingdom  and  India,  can  be  estimated  from 
the  fact  that  when  the  exclusive  monopoly  of  the 
Company  was  drawing  to  a close  in  1814  the  total 
trade  was  but  £1,870,690,  while  in  1894,  of 
£215,824,333  sterling  of  British  products  exported 
abroad,  India  was  a customer  for  goods  to  the 
value  of  £29,300,069. 

Cotton  and  cotton  manufactures  form  the  most 
important  items  of  Indian  trade  amounting  to  one- 
fourth  of  the  whole.  The  cheap  production  of  cotton 
goods  in  India  roused  the  animosity  of  English 
manufacturers  as  early  as  the  year  1700,  when  they 
succeeded  in  getting  an  Act  of  Parliament  passed 
to  prevent  these  goods  coming  into  England  to 
compete  with  home  products.  The  introduction  of 


THE  COTTO.V  DUTIES. 


381 

new  processes  of  especially  the  use  of  steam  pow  er, 
gave  to  England  an  easy  supremacy  in  the  manu- 
facture of  textile  goods  over  the  laborious  process 
of  the  hand  looms  of  the  East,  Lancashire  grow  ing 
thereby  in  wealth  and  property,  the  village  industry 
in  India  gradually  declining. 

In  the  year  1851  the  first  cotton  mill  was  started 
in  Bombay,  and  in  1859  the  Finance  Minister,  James 
Wilson,  raised  the  import  duty  on  cotton  yarns  from 
5 to  10  per  cent.  Mr.  Samuel  Laing  reduced  the 
import  duty  again  to  5 per  cent.,  a rate  which  Lord 
Northbrook  refused  to  lower.  Under  the  rule  of 
Lord  Lytton  the  finer  cotton  goods — those  made 
of  yarn  lighter  than  thirties — were  exempted  from 
duty  on  importation  into  India — a policy  of  so-called 
free  trade  carried  further  by  Lord  Ripon,  w7ho 
abolished  the  import  duty.  Notwithstanding  this 
the  Indian  mills  succeeded  in  competing  success- 
fully in  the  coarser  class  of  goods  with  those  of 
Lancashire.  In  consequence  of  the  pressing  financial 
embarrassment  of  India,  the  import  duty  on  cotton 
goods  was  reimposed  towards  the  close  of  1894,  and 
an  excise  duty  levied  on  all  cotton  yarns  produced 
in  India  of  counts  over  twenty,  in  which  it  was 
hoped  the  Lancashire  mills  would  retain  an  easy 
monopoly,  so  that  the  trade  in  the  coarser  class  of 
goods  might  be  left  in  the  hands  of  native  mill- 
owners.  The  recent  legislation  of  1 896  has  reduced 
this  import  duty  to  3^  per  cent,  ad  valorem  on 
piece  goods  and  cotton  manufactures,  and  imposed 
a duty  of  3^  per  cent,  on  woven  goods  of  all  counts 
manufactured  by  Indian  mills. 


382  PROGRESS  UNDER  BRITISH  RULE. 

For  long  it  was  considered  that  the  Indian  mills 
could  not  produce  yarns  of  a higher  count  than 
twenty-fours,  but  of  late  it  has  become  evident  that 
India  can  produce  goods  of  as  fine  a quality  as  those 
imported  from  abroad  if  the  manufacture  proves  a 
financial  success.  There  are  now  over  140  cotton 
mills  in  India  which  employ  some  130,000  labourers. 
These  mills  are  gradually  being  brought  under  the 
regulations  of  the  English  Factory  Act,  with  the 
intention  of  reducing  the  time  of  labour  to  eleven 
hours,  with  one  hour’s  rest  in  the  middle  of  the 
day,  and  of  restricting  the  hours  of  employment  of 
women. 

The  principal  articles  of  merchandise  imported 
into  India  and  the  growth  of  the  trade  during 
the  course  of  five  years  is  as  follows  : — 


1889-90. 

1893-4. 

Cotton  goods  and  yarn 

Rx. 

29,873,928 

Rx. 

32,377,469 

Metals,  including  hardware  and  cutlery. 

6,802,177 

7,580,282 

Oils,  chiefly  mineral  ...  

2,645,213 

3,570,188 

Silk,  raw  and  manufactured 

2,845,159 

3,188,053 

Sugar  

2,200,049 

2,824,190 

Machinery  and  millwork  

2,435,385 

2,518,038 

Woollen  goods 

1,455,235 

1,892,042 

Chemicals, drugs, dves,  and  medicines. &c. 

1,280,556 

1,596,565 

1,837,570 

Provisions 

1,782,868 

Apparel 

1,296,394 

1,578,049 

Liquors  

1,465,144 

1,458,204 

Railway  material 

1,821,337 

1,242,977 

Coal 

1,308,590 

972,588 

Spices  

852,350 

873,655 

Salt 

894632 

791,067 

Glass  and  glassware  

647,127 

788,480 

Paper  and  pasteboard  

407,479 

494,208 

Umbrellas  ... 

314,106 

480,933 

TMPORTS  AND  EXPORTS.  383 


The  exports  of  Indian  merchandise  are  shown  in 
the  next  list : — 


1889-90. 

1893-94. 

1 . Grain  and  pulse 

16,528,225 

16,325,142 

2.  Cotton,  raw  

18,668,404 

13,296,670 

3.  Seeds 

10,627,553 

16,753,251 

4.  Opium 

10,115,936 

8,019,428 

5.  Cotton  varns  and  cloth 

6.753.743 

6,242,558 

6.  Jute,  raw 

8,639,861 

8,524,130 

7.  Tea  

5.277.650 

6,585,835 

8.  Hides  and  skins 

4,524.261 

5,801,328 

9.  Indigo  

3,863,084 

4,182,128 

10.  Jute  manufactures  

2,791,242 

3,44L787 

11.  Coffee  

1,489,872 

2,002,171 

12.  Wool,  raw  

1,085,637 

i,°79,772 

13.  Dyes  (other  than  indigo)  

683,288 

841,073 

14.  Lac  

488,513 

960,330 

1 5.  Provisions  

624,425 

873,877 

16.  Wood  and  timber  

870,119 

589,764 

17.  Silk,  raw 

639,818 

698,099 

18.  Oils,  including  paraffin  wax  

555, °°7 

535,88i 

19.  Sugar  

9i7,i7h 

892,741 

The  following,  showing  the  imports  of  tea  from 
India,  China,  and  Ceylon,  to  England  points  out 
clearly  the  rapid  growth  of  the  demand  for  India  and 
Ceylon  tea  and  the  corresponding  decrease  in  the 
demand  for  the  more  delicate  China  teas.  The 


quantities  are  given  in  lbs.  ooo’s  omitted. 


From  India. 

From  Ceylon. 

From  China. 

1884 

63,208 

2,211 

143,771 

1885 

64,382 

4,242 

139,673 

1886 

73,467 

7,144 

145,308 

1887 

84,645 

13,062 

119,799 

1888 

89,874 

22,509 

105,735 

1889 

95,384 

32,673 

88,558 

1890 

101,771 

42491 

73,743 

1891 

109,638 

61,900 

62,284 

1892 

111,711 

66,042 

57,051 

1893 

115,023 

72,631 

56,209 

3§4 


PROGRESS  UNDER  BRITISH  RULE. 


While  from  the  earliest  clays  of  the  Company  the 
development  of  commerce  and  increase  in  the  wealth 
of  the  country'  has  received  the  first  attention  of 
its  Western  rulers  the  intellectual  and  mpral  welfare 
of  the  people  have  also  claimed  the  earnest  attention 
of  the  State. 

The  first  step  taken  under  the  rule  of  the  Company 
towards  connecting  the  State  with  the  education  of 
the  people  was,  in  1781,  when  Warren  Hastings 
founded  a Muhammadan  College  at  Calcutta,  an 
enlightened  policy'  carried  on  by  Mr.  Jonathan 
Duncan  who  established  a college  at  Benares,  in 
1791,  for  the  encouragement  of  Sanskrit  learning 
among  the  Hindus. 

The  Rev.  H.  B.  Hyde,  in  one  of  a learned  and 
painstaking  series  of  articles  to  the  Indian  Church 
Quarterly  Review  has  recently  pointed  out  that  in 
1788  Mr.  John  Owen,  Chaplain  to  the  Bengal  Presi- 
dency', addressed  a memorial,  signed  by  all  the 
chaplains  then  stationed  at  Calcutta,  to  the  Govern- 
ment, urging  that  schools  should  be  established,  “ in 
proper  situations  for  the  purpose  of  teaching  our 
language  to  the  natives  of  these  provinces,”  so  that 
“ the  beneficence  of  Great  Britain  would  acquire  a 
more  glorious  Empire  over  a benighted  people  than 
conquest  has  ever  yet  bestowed.”  This  very'  curious 
and  interesting  petition,  which,  as  Mr.  Hyde  remarks, 
has  been  overlooked  by'  all  historians,  does  not  appear 
to  have  received  any  attention  from  Government. 

From  the  year  1799  the  renowned  Baptist  mission- 
aries Marshman  and  Ward,  who  had  settled  at  a 
small  Danish  settlement  at  Serampur,  set  up  a print 


EDUCATION. 


385 


ing  press  and  commenced  to  print  and  distribute 
vernacular  literature,  and  by  1815  they  had  estab- 
lished twenty  schools  in  the  vicinity  of  Calcutta,  with 
upwards  of  800  native  children. 

For  the  first  time,  either  at  home  or  abroad,  the 
principle  that  the  instruction  of  the  people  was  an 
essential  part  of  the  duties  of  the  State  was  clearly 
enunciated  by  the  Charter  Act  of  1813.  By  this  Act 
it  was  declared  that  “it  shall  be  lawful  for  the 
Governor-General  in  Council  to  direct  that  out  of  any 
surplus  which  may  remain  of  the  rents,  revenues,  and 
profits  arising  from  the  said  territorial  acquisitions, 
after  defraying  the  expenses  of  the  military,  civil,  and 
commercial  establishments,  and  paying  the  interest 
of  the  debt,  ...  a sum  not  less  than  one  lac  of  rupees 
in  each  year  shall  be  set  apart  and  applied  to  the 
revival  and  improvement  of  literature,  and  the 
encouragement  of  the  learned  natives  of  India,  and 
for  the  introduction  and  promotion  of  a knowledge  of 
the  sciences  among  the  inhabitants  of  the  British 
territories  in  India.”  The  lakh  of  rupees  herein  re- 
ferred to  was  transferred  to  a General  Committee 
of  Public  Instruction,  appointed  by  the  Bengal 
Government  in  1823,  for  the  purpose  of  devising 
measures  “ with  a view  to  the  better  instruction  of 
the  people,  to  the  introduction  among  them  of  useful 
knowledge,  and  to  the  improvement  of  their  moral 
character.” 

The  more  advanced  natives  of  India  were  naturally 
eager  that  these  State  Funds  should  be  employed 
in  encouraging  the  study  of  English  instead  of 
Eastern  learning.  The  Committee  of  Public  Instruc- 

26 


386  PROGRESS  UNDER  BRITISH  RULE. 

tion,  however,  preferred  to  found  Oriental  colleges  at 
Agra  and  Delhi,  thereby  drawing  down  on  them- 
selves, in  1824,  the  retort  of  the  Court  of  Directors 
that  “ in  professing  to  establish  seminaries  for  the 
purpose  of  teaching  mere  Hindu,  or  mere  Muham- 
madan literature,  you  bound  yourselves  to  teach  a 
great  deal  of  what  was  frivolous,  not  a little  of  what 
was  purely  mischievous,  and  a small  remainder, 
indeed,  in  which  utility  was  not  in  any  way  con- 
cerned.” The  object  of  the  Directors  in  thus  urging 
the  necessity  of  an  English  education  was  to  raise 
a class  of  natives  fitted  for  employment  in  the  civil 
administration,  so  that  gradually  English  would  be- 
come the  language  in  which  public  business  might 
be  transacted — a policy  sedulously  supported  by  the 
educated  class  of  natives,  and,  as  a rule,  reprobated 
by  the  Indian  officials. 

When  the  renewal  of  the  Company’s  Charter  was 
proposed  to  the  House  of  Commons  in  1833  by  Mr. 
Charles  Grant,  President  of  the  Board  of  Control,  it 
was  laid  down  that  the  duty  of  the  Company  was  the 
“ extending  the  commerce  of  this  country,  and  of 
securing  the  good  government,  and  promoting  the  reli- 
gious and  moral  improvement  of  the  people  of  India.” 

Lord  W.  Bentinck,  acting  under  the  influence  of 
Lord  Macaulay,  announced  on  the  /th  of  March  that 
he  was  “ of  opinion  that  the  great  object  of  the 
British  Government  ought  to  be  the  promotion  of 
European  literature  and  science  amongst  the  natives 
of  India,  and  that  all  the  funds  appropriated  for  the 
purpose  of  education  should  be  best  employed  on 
English  education  alone.” 


STRICT  NEUTRALITY 


387 


A new  difficulty  immediately  arose.  It  was  con- 
tended that  by  the  favour  shown  by  the  Government 
towards  the  education  of  the  natives  in  English 
learning  and  modes  of  thought,  attempts  were  being 
made  to  undermine  the  native  religions  and  gradually 
convert  the  people  to  Christianity.  The  point  was 
plainly  expressed  by  the  Rev.  Alexander  Duff  who, 
on  examination  on  the  subject  before  the  House  of 
Commons  in  1835,  said,  “We  cannot  but  lament  that 
no  provision  whatever  has  been  made  for  substituting 
the  only  true  religion — Christianity — in  place  of  the 
false  religion  which  our  literature  and  science  will 
inevitably  demolish.” 

These  doubts  and  hopes  were  put  an  end  to  by 
Lord  William  Bentinck  who,  as  quoted  by  the  learned 
Syed  Mahmood  in  his  recent  valuable  “ History  of 
English  Education  in  India,  ” declared  that  “ the  funda- 
mental principle  of  British  rule,  the  compact  to  which 
the  Government  stands  solemnly  pledged  is  strict 
neutrality.  To  this  important  maxim  policy,  as  well 
as  good  faith,  have  enjoined  upon  us  the  most  scrupu- 
lous observance.  The  same  maxim  is  peculiarly 
applicable  to  general  education.  In  all  schools  and 
colleges  supported  by  Government  this  principle  can- 
not be  too  strongly  enforced,  all  interference  and 
injudicious  tampering  with  the  religious  belief  of  the 
students,  all  mingling  direct  or  indirect  teaching  of 
Christianity  with  the  system  of  instruction,  ought  to 
be  positively  forbidden.” 

The  despatch  of  Sir  Charles  Wood  in  1854  laid 
down  the  principle  that  English  was  to  be  a medium 
of  instruction  only  in  the  higher  branches  of  education, 


388  PROGRESS  UNDER  BRITISH  RULE. 

and  that  the  vernacular  was  to  be  employed  in  the 
lower  grades  of  schools  Under  the  terms  of  the 
same  despatch  universities  were  to  be  established  for 
the  Presidency  chief  towns,  after  the  model  of  the 
University  of  London  for  examining  pupils  and 
granting  degrees  in  arts,  law,  medicine,  and  civil 
engineering  ; those  of  Calcutta,  Madras,  and  Bombay 
in  1857,  of  the  Punjab  at  Lahore  in  1882,  and  of 
the  North-western  Provinces  at  Allahabad  in  1887. 

According  to  the  Report  of  an  Education  Com- 
mission of  1882,  presided  over  by  Sir  William  Wilson 
Hunter,  it  was  decided  that  Government  should 
gradually  withdraw  from  all  direct  work  in  connec- 
tion with  secondary  education,  and  leave  such  schools 
to  be  supported  by  private  efforts  supplemented  by 
grants  in  aid.  The  number  of  colleges  teaching  for 
universities  and  schools,  and  their  progress  during 
ten  years  since  that  date  is  shown  by  the  following 
statement : — 


Grade. 

1881-82. 

1891-92. 

Xo. 

Pupils. 

Xo. 

Pupils. 

University 

Secondary  

Primary  

Normal 

Technical  

86 

24 

4432 

90,700 

135 

189 

8,127 

2,411 

418,412 

2,537,502 

4,949 

8,503 

IO4 

37 

4,872 

97,109 

152 

402 

12,985 
3492 
473494 
2, 837,607 
5446 
16,586 

Total  

95.566 

2,979,904 

102,676 

3,348,910 

The  following  list  gives  the  increase  during  five 


England's  prime  function.  389 

years  of  what  may  be  called  the  higher  educated 
natives  of  India  : — 


University. 

Matriculation. 

Intermediate 

Examination. 

Bachelor 
of  Arts. 

Master 
of  Arts. 

Candidates. 

Passed. 

Passed. 

Passed. 

Passed. 

Calcutta 

27,612 

11,022 

3,810 

1,592 

266 

Madras  

36467 

9,457 

4,236 

1,21 1 

21 

Bombay 

15,352 

4,143 

1,740 

492 

18 

Allahabad 

6,718 

2,909 

8lO 

355 

58 

Lahore  

4,602 

1,859 

472 

153 

9 

Total 

90,751 

29,390 

II,o68 

3,803 

372 

Annual  Average 

18,150 

5,878 

2,213 

761 

54 

The  full  effects  of  these  efforts  for  the  intellectual 
improvement  of  the  people  of  India  must  be  looked 
for  in  the  future.  Sir  Alfred  Lyall  has  in  his 
“ Asiatic  Studies,”  pointed  out  that  “ England’s  prime 
function  in  India  is  at  present  this:  to  superintend 
the  tranquil  elevation  of  the  whole  moral  and  intel- 
lectual standard.”  The  ideals  to  be  aimed  towards 
and  the  results  to  be  attained  by  England  in  thus 
carrying  out  her  great  mission  in  the  history  of  the 
world’s  progress,  have,  with  philosophic  calm  and 
poetic  insight,  been  traced  out  by  Sir  Raymond  West 
in  the  course  of  an  Address  to  the  Ninth  Oriental 
Congress  of  1892  in  the  following  words  : — 

“ There  is  no  great  need  for  a large  multiplication 
of  secondary  schools  and  of  colleges  affiliated  to  the 
Universities,  but  there  is  need  for  access  to  them 
being  made  easy  to  ability,  and  great  need  for  their 
teaching  being  raised  and  widened,  if  those  who  pass 


390 


PROGRESS  UXDER  BRITISH  RULE. 


through  them  and  become  the  intellectual  leaders  of 
India  are  to  be  equal  to  their  high  calling,  and  are  to 
take  a part  honourable  to  themselves  and  their  nation 
in  the  creation  of  an  imperial  spirit  which  shall  super- 
sede all  ideas  of  severance,  and  further  that  fusion  of 
the  philosophies  of  the  East  and  West  to  which  we 
may  now  look  most  hopefully  for  the  moral  and 
intellectual  advance  of  mankind.” 


INDEX. 


A 

Abdur  Rahman  Khan,  Amir,  326, 
341 

Abercromby,  General,  154 
Aboriginal  inhabitants,  49 
Adi  Granth,  245 
Administration,  369 
Afghanistan,  219,  227,  231,  326 
Agra,  capture  of,  176 
Agriculturists’  Relief  Act,  366 
Ahmadabad,  142 
Ahmadnagar,  175 
Ahmad  Shah  Durani,  123 
Aix  la  Chapelle,  Treaty  of,  75 
Akbar,  Emperor,  59 
Alambagh,  301 

Alexander  the  Great,  invasion  of 
India,  4 

Aligarh,  fort  of,  taken,  176 
Aliwal,  battle  of,  252 
Allahabad,  113,  124,  126,  287 
Allard,  General,  247 
Ambala,  mutiny  at,  278  ; troops 
assembled  at,  285 
Ambela  campaign,  319 
Amboyna,  massacre  of,  38 
America,  134 

Aminchand  (Omichund),  98 
Amherst,  Lord,  201-4  : war  with 
Burma,  201 
Amritsar,  245 
Anderson,  Lieutenant,  255 
Anson.  General,  at  Ambala,  285 


Anwar-ud-din,  70 
Arakan  ceded,  203 
Arcot  Fort,  capture  and  defence 
of,  83,  85 
Argaon,  176 
Army,  275,  315,  356,  362 
Arnold  at  Charbagh  Bridge,  304 
Arrah,  defence  of,  288,  289 
Arras,  battle  of,  141 
Aryan  languages,  52  ; early 
home,  52 

Asaf-ud  Daula,  13 1,  139 
Asoka,  7 
Assam,  203 
Assaye,  175 

Astronomy,  Indian  and  Greek,  7 
Auckland,  Lord,  216-19 
Aurangzib,  62,  63 
Avitabile.  General,  247 
Ayub  Khan,  341 


B 

Babar,  48 

Badliki  Sarai,  battle  of,  286 
Bahadur  Shah,  Emperor,  283  ; 
death,  303 
I Bailey  Guard,  305 
: Baillie,  Colonel,  145 
Baines,  Mr.,  Census  Commis- 
1 sioner,  353 
Baird,  General,  145,  167 
I Baj-Bai,  capture  of,  94 


391 


392 


INDEX. 


Baji  Rao,  172,  192 
Baker,  Sir  Robert,  125 
Baksar,  battle  of,  no 
Baluchistan,  359 
Baptist  missionaries,  384 
Barbour,  Sir  David,  367 
Barlow,  Sir  George,  181 
Barnard,  General,  285 
Baroda,  Gaekwar  of,  333 
Barodia,  capture  of,  31 1 
Barrackpur,  mutiny  at,  277 
Barrow,  Captain,  his  volunteer 
cavalry,  296,  297 
Barvvell,  Richard,  130 
Bashiratganj,  battle  of,  299 
Bassein,  140  ; treaty  of,  172 
Begams  of  Oudh,  139 
Benares,  131,  137,  138,  289 
Bentinck,  Lord  William,  205-15  ; 
abolition  of  widow-burning, 
206  ; suppression  of  Thags, 
211 

Berhampur,  mutiny  at,  277 
Berlin,  Peace  of,  336 
Bernier,  Francois,  63 
Bhartpur  fortress,  siege  of,  180  ; 

capture  of,  204 
Bhils,  179 

Bhonsla  of  Nagpur,  123,  141, 

177 196 

Bhutan  war,  319,  320 
Biderra,  battle  of,  104 
Bijapur,  63 

Bird,  Robert  Mertins,  land 
settlement,  206 

Bithur,  Nana  Sahib,  defeated  at, 
299 

Black  Hole  of  Calcutta,  92 
Bombay  leased  to  Company  by 
Charles  II.,  40  ; cotton  crisis, 
324  ; water  supply  of,  375 
Bore  Ghat,  143 

Boughton,  Gabriel,  of  the  Hope- 
well,  39 

Breda,  Treaty  of,  44 
Boyle,  Vicars,  at  Arrah,  288 
Braithwaite,  Colonel,  146 
Brasyer,  Colonel,  at  Allahabad, 
290 

Browne,  General  Sir  Samuel,  337 
Bruce,  Captain,  142 


Brj’don,  Dr.,  233 
Burgess,  Corporal,  302 
Burke,  150 

Burma,  Upper,  annexed,  342 
Burnes,  Alexander,  218,  226 
Burrows,  General,  341 
Bussy,  76,  103,  106,  147 
Busteed’s  “ Echoes  from  Old 
Calcutta,”  93 

Battye,  Lieutenant  - Colonel, 
death  of,  349 

C 

Camac,  Colonel,  141 
Campbell,  Sir  Colin,  305  ; at 
Cawnpur,  307  ; Lord  Clyde, 
3ii 

Canning,  Lord,  274-317 
Cape  of  Good  Hope  discovered, 
12 

Carmichael,  Sergeant,  302 
Caron,  conquests,  recall,  and 
death,  42 

Cartridges,  greasing  of,  276 
Cavagnari,  Sir  Louis,  336-8 
Cawnpur,  sepoys  mutiny,  280  ; 
defence  of,  290 ; memorial 
well  at,  292 
Census  report,  353 
Chait  Singh,  131,  137,  138 
> Chaman,  359 

Chamberlain,  Sir  Neville,  319, 

336, 

Chanar,  138 
Chanda  Sahib,  69 
Chandranagar,  97,  144 
Chapatis,  276 

Charbagh  Bridge,  301,  304 
Charter  of  Company,  198 
Chauth,  177 

Chilianwala,  battle  of,  257 
China,  360 
Chitral,  346-51 
Christianity,  199,  273,  384-9 
Civil  Service,  369 
Clavering,  130,  134 
Clive,  78-118  ; defence  of  Arcot, 
84  ; surprised  at  Kaveripak,  85  ; 
at  Samiaveram,  87  ; capture 
of  Calcutta,  94  ; Plassey,  99  ; 


INDEX. 


393 


returns  to  England,  107  ; at 
Bengal,  in  ; his  acquisitions 
and  policy,  112  ; army  and 
Civil  Service  reforms,  113  ; 
death,  118 
Coal,  377 

Cockburn,  Colonel,  141 
Columbus  discovers  America,  12 
Commerce,  ancient  and  mediae- 
val, 1-12 

Commons,  House  of,  resolution 
of  1893,  371 

Company,  finance  of,  205  ; ex- 
clusive right  of  trading  to 
China  abolished,  214.  See 
Finance 

Competitive  examination,  371 
Congress,  National,  344 
Connolly,  223 

Constantinople  founded,  8 ; sack 
of,  11 

Coote,  Eyre,  99,  106,  142,  146 
Conversion  of  debt,  185 
Coorg,  165,  262 

Cornwallis, Lord, 151-60;  Mysore 
war,  152 

Cotton,  324,  342,  380,  381 
Cotton,  Sir  Willoughby,  219 
Council,  legislative,  369  ; vice- 
roy’s, 368 
Court,  Colonel,  24.7 
Cross,  Lord,  Act  of  1892,  369 
Cuttack  ceded,  177 
Currie,  Sir  Frederick,  255 

D 

Dalhousie,  Lord,  255 ; second 
Sikh  war,  257  ; annexations, 
262  ; Oudh,  264  ; doctrine  of 
lapse,  265  ; Nana  Sahib,  267  ; 
Railway  minute,  268  ; on 
mutiny,  274 

Dangers  from  moneylenders, 

365 

De  Boigne,  173 
Debt,  Public,  363 
Deccan  Relief  Act,  366 
Declaration  of  Independence, 
134 

Defence  of  chief  cities,  357 


Delafosse,  292 

Delhi,  capture  of,  176  ; mutiny 
at,  283  ; siege  of,  286  ; capture, 

302,  303 

Denison,  Sir  William,  318 
Deogaon,  Treaty  of,  176 
Dhulip  Singh,  249,  254,  258 
Dilkusha,  capture  of,  308 
Diodorus  and  ancient  India,  2 
Districts,  administrative,  369 
Diwangiri,  320 

Dost  Muhammad  Khan  receives 
Russian  envoy,  218  ; war  with, 
219  ; flight,  222  ; surrender, 
225  ; restored  as  Amir,  237, 
326 

Drake,  Sir  Francis,  captures  the 
San  Filippe,  24 

Drama,  Indian  and  classical,  7 
Dravidians,  51 
Duff,  Rev.  Alexander,  387 
Dufferin,  Lord,  342 
Dunbar,  Captain,  defeat  near 
Arrah,  289 

Dupleix,  70  ; holds  Madras,  71  ; 
his  policy,  75-7  ; his  recall 
and  death,  89 

Durand,  Lieutenant,  220  ; agree- 
ment, 348 

Dutch  commerce,  40  ; sea  fights, 
41  ; defeat  at  Biderra,  104 

E 

Eden,  Ashley,  319 
Education,  268,  342,  356,  384-9 
Edwardes,  H.,  301  ; siege  of 
Multan,  256 

Egerton,  Colonel,  141,  142 
Elephanta,  143 
Elgin,  Lord,  287,  318 
Ellenborough,  Lord,  235-9 
Ellis,  Governor  of  Patna,  109 
Elphinstone,  Mountstuart,  194 
English  to  be  official  language, 

215 

Evans,  Sir  Griffith,  365 
Exchange,  363 

Exports  and  imports,  382,  383 
Eyre,  Major  Vincent,  relieves 
Arrah,  289 


394 


INDEX. 


F 

Famine  in  1770,  117  ; in  Orissa, 
321  ; in  Lower  Bengal,  333  ; 
in  South  India,  334  ; effects 
of,  364 

Fatehpur,  battle  of,  297 
Finance,  profits  of  early  voyages, 
31,  32,  36,  37  ; of  Company  in 
1693, 47  ; difficulties  of  Warren 
Hastings,  122  ; of  Company  in 
1773,  116,  117,  134  ; prosperity 
under  Lord  Minto,  185  ; in 
1823,  199  ; of  Company,  205  ; 
after  Mutiny,  316  ; under  Lord 
Mayo,  329  ; difficulties,  362 
Firozshah,  battle  of,  250 
Fitch,  Ralph,  visits  India,  22  ; 
his  travels,  23  ; his  account  of 
widow-burning,  23 
Fitzgerald,  Captain,  197 
Fletcher,  Sir  Robert,  115 
Flint,  Lieutenant,  145 
Forde,  Colonel,  capturesNort  h ern 
Circars,  104  ; defeats  Dutch, 
104 

Fort  St.  David,  73,  105 
Fowler,  Sir  Henry,  350 
France,  and  Company,  41 
Francis,  Philip,  130,  132,  133, 
135 

Frazer,  General,  death  of,  180 
French  in  India,  68-76 ; sur- 
render to  Lawrence,  88  ; final 
losses,  105  ; in  Tongking,  360 
Frere,  Sir  Bartle,  324 
Fryer,  Dr.,  66 
Fullerton,  Colonel,  148 

G 

Gaekwar,  123,  143 
Gandamak,  Treaty  of,  337 
Gangadhar  Sastri,  death  of,  193 
Gardner,  Colonel,  247 
Garhakota,  capture  of,  31 1 
Garvock,  General,  3x9 
Gawilgarh,  capture  of,  176 
Genoa,  struggle  for  commercial 
supremacy,- 1 1 
Ghazni,  capture  of,  220 
Ghurkas,  188  ; war,  189,  190 


Gilbert,  General,  257,  258 
Gillespie,  Colonel,  at  Vellore 
183  ; in  Ghurka  war,  189 
Gladstone,  Mr.,  325,  344 
Goddard,  Colonel,  142 
Godeheu  succeeds  Dupleix,  89 
Gohad,  Rana  of,  143 
Golconda,  southern  kingdom  of, 

63 

Gold  coinage  under  Act  VIII. 

of  1893,  363 
Gold-mines,  378 
Golden  Firman,  39 
Gough,  Lord,  250  ; at  Chilian- 
wala,  257  ; at  Ramnagar,  257  ; 
at  Gujrat,  258 

Govind  Singh,  tenth  Sikh  Guru, 
246 

Grant,  Lieutenant  Alexander, 
175 

Grant,  Charles,  386 
Greathed,  Colonel,  307 
Greek  influence  on  Indian  art, 
literature,  and  science,  7 
Greeks  in  India,  4 
Griffin,  Sir  Lepel,  341 
Grimwood,  Mr.,  at  Manipur,  345 
Gujarat,  142 
Gujrat,  battle  of,  258 
Gwalior,  capture  of,  142,  314 

H 

Hafiz  Rahmat  Khan,  125,  127 
Haidar,  All,  124,  144 
Haidarabad,  subsidiary  force, 
164 

Hamilton,  Lord  George,  351 
Hamilton,  Lieutenant,  337 
s Harcourt,  Colonel,  176 
Hardinge,  Sir  Henry,  249 
Hardy,  Lieutenant,  339 
Harris,  General,  march  on  Ser- 
ingapatam,  165 

Hastings,  Warren,  arrival  in 
India,  120  ; member  of  council, 
Madras,  121  ; Rohilla  war, 
125-7  1 Nanda  Kumar,  132  ; 
Cliait  Singh,  137  ; impeach- 
ment, 137  ; Maratha  war,  141  ; 
Haidar  All,  145  ; leaves  India, 
149  ; character,  150 


INDEX. 


395 


Hastings,  Marquess,  186-200  ; 
Ghurka  war,  188  ; Pindan 
war,  191  ; Maratha  war,  196 
Havelock,  Lieutenant,  wins  Vic- 
toria Cross,  298  ; at  Charbagh 
Bridge,  304 

Havelock,  Henry,  235  ; sent  to 
relieve  Lucknow,  294  ; battle 
of  Fatehpur,  297  ; battle  of 
Panda  Nadi,  297  ; of  Maha- 
rajpur,  297  ; battle  at  Unao 
and  Bashiratganj , 299 ; relieved 
by  Outram,  299  ; at  Lucknow, 
301  ; death,  309 
Hawthorne,  Bugler,  302 
Hearsey,  Colonel,  277,  278 
Henry  the  Navigator,  12 
Herat,  siege  of,  218 
Hewitt,  General,  at  Meerut,  280 
Hodson,  captures  Emperor  and 
slays  the  three  Princes,  303 
Holkar,  123  ; Jeswant  Rao,  177  ; 

defeats  Monson,  178 
Holwell,  91  ; story  of  Black 
Hole  of  Calcutta,  92 
Home,  Lieutenant,  302 
Hope,  Adrian,  308,  310 
Htigel,  Baron,  240,  248 
Hughes,  Admiral,  147 
Hugli,  factory  at,  40 
Hunter,  Sir  W.  Wilson,  and 
Education  Commission,  388 
Hyde,  Rev.  H.  B.,  384 

I 

Impey,  Sir  Elijah,  130 
Import  duties,  342 
Imports  and  exports,  382-3 
Income-tax,  316 
India  Bill  of  Pitt,  151 
Indore,  311 

Inglis,  Colonel,  defends  Luck- 
now, 294 
Iron,  378 

Irrigation  department,  323 

J 

Jagannuth,  176 
Jahangir,  59 


Jalalabad,  defence  of,  231,  234, 

235 

Java,  capture  ot,  184 
Jenkins,  William,  337 
Jhansi  Rani,  267,  311,  314 
Jind,  Raja,  301 

K 

Kaisarbagh,  304 

Kandahar,  defence  of,  234 ; 

evacuated,  342 
Karnatik,  69,  169 
Kashmir,  Gate,  of  Delhi,  302 
Kaufman,  General,  331 
Kavanagh,  Lucknow,  307 
Keane,  Sir  John,  219 
Keating,  Colonel,  141 
Kelly,  Dr.,  337 

Kelly,  Colonel,  his  march  to 
Chitral,  349 
Khaibar  Pass,  358 
Khalsa,  army,  of  Sikhs,  247 
Khelat,  Khan  of,  359 
| Khiva,  331 
1 Kolarian,  51 
Kora,  124,  126 
Koragaon,  defence  of,  195 
Krishna  Rai,  168 
Kunch,  battle  of,  312 
Kirki.  garrison  of,  194 
Kurdla,  160 

L 

La  Bourdonnais  captures 
Madras,  70 
Laing,  Samuel,  316 
Lally,  Count,  105 
Lai  "Singh,  255 

Land,  permanent  settlement, 
154-158  ; Bengal  Act  of  1859, 
157 ; settlement  in  Madras, 
199  ; settlement  in  North- 
west Provinces,  206  ; Tax, 
366 

Lansdowne,  Lord,  344 
Lake,  General,  174 
Lapse,  doctrine  of,  265 
Laswari,  battle  of,  174,  176 
Lawrence,  Major,  French  sur- 
render to,  88 


396 


INDEX. 


Lawrence,  Henry,  254,  258,  280, 
294 

Lawrence,  John,  258,  286,  318 
Leibnitz,  advice  to  Louis  XIV.,  44 
Leslie,  Colonel,  142 
Lesseps,  Ferdinand  de,  379 
License-tax,  334 
Littler,  Sir  J.,  250 
Low,  Colonel,  349 
Lucknow,  Treaty  of,  170  ; Resi- 
denc}'  at,  294  ; defence  of, 
294  ; advance  on,  300,  301  ; 
retreat  from,  309  ; final  cap- 
ture of,  310 

Lumsden,  Sir  Peter,  343 
Lyall,  Sir  Alfred,  389 
Lytton,  Lord,  334-341 

M 

Macartney,  Lord,  148 
Macaulay,  Lord,  150 ; opinion 
on  Oriental  literature,  214 
Macnaghten,  Sir  William,  227, 
230 

Macnaghten,  Lady,  234 
Macpherson,  General,  at  Kabul, 
339  , 

Maharajpur,  battle  of,  238,  297 
Mahe,  144 

Maiwand,  battle  of,  341 
Malcolm,  Sir  John,  164 
Mangalore,  Treaty  of,  152 
Manipur,  345 

Manni  Begam  of  Oudh,  132 
Mansel,  Charles  Greville,  258 
Marathas,  6,  69,  123,  125,  154, 
171,  172,  188 
Markar,  109 
Martiniere,  308 

Massey,  General,  at  Kabul,  339 
Masulipatam,  capture  of,  176 
Maude’s  Battery,  296,  297,  304 
Mauritius,  capture  of,  184 
Mayo,  Lord,  327  ; financial  re- 
forms of,  329  ; death,  329 
Meade,  Sir  Richard,  314 
Meerut,  arrest  of  mutineers  at, 
280  ; mutiny,  281 
Megasthenes,  Ambassador  to 
Chandragupta,  6 


| Mehidpur,  battle  of,  196 
Mekong  River,  351,  360 
Meloria,  battle  in  1284,  11 
Mess-house  at  Lucknow,  304 
Mill’s  “ History  of  British  India,” 
199 

Minto,  Lord,  183-5 
Mir  Jafar,  97  ; puts  Siraj-ud- 
Daula  to  death,  102 
Mitchell,  Colonel,  277 
Moneylenders,  367 
Monson,  Colonel,  130,  134 
Monson’s  retreat  before  Holkar, 

; 1781  179 

Mornington,  Lord,  161 
Mudki,  250 

Mughal  Empire.  57-67 
Mughal  Emperors,  last  of,  303 
Muhammad,  his  teaching,  8 ; 
conquests,  10 

Muhammad  Raza  Khan,  128, 132 
Mulraj,  255 
Multan,  255 

Mundinpur,  battle  of,  31 1 
Munghal,  Pandi,  278 
Munro,  Sir  Hector,  quells  mutiny, 
no,  145 

Munro,  Sir  Thomas,  199 
Mushkaf  Valley  Railway,  359 
Muti  Masjid,  304 
Mutiny  at  Vellore,  181  ; early 
mutinies,  271-2  ; at  Berham- 
pur,  277  ; at  Ambala,  278  ; at 
Allahabad,  287  ; cause  of,  287  ; 
at  Benares,  289  ; defence  of 
Cawnpur,  292  ; defence  of 
Lucknow,  294  ; Delhi  cap- 
tured, 303  ; relief  of  Lucknow, 
305  ; retreat  from  Lucknow, 

309  ; capture  of  Lucknow, 

310  ; debt  of,  315 
Muzaffar  Jang,  75 
Mysore  wars,  152,  165 

N 

Nabha  Raja,  301 
Xagpur,  267 

Xana  Sahib,  196,  267,  275,  290, 
297,  299,  310,  314 
Xanak,  245 


INDEX. 


397 


Xanda  Kumar,  128,  132 
Nandidrug,  154 

Napier,  Sir  Charles,  and  Sind, 
238  ; on  Mutiny,  272,  313 
Xapoleon,  Conference  of  Tilsit, 

183 

Xational  Congress,  344 
Xatives,  employment  of,  in  Civil 
Service,  370 

Navigation  Act  of  Cromwell, 
40  ; of  Charles  II.,  43 
Nawab  of  Karnatik,  69  ; title 
lapses,  267 

Nawab  Wazir,  125,  13 1 
Neill,  Colonel,  at  Benares,  289  ; 
at  Allahabad,  290  ; at  Cawn- 
pur,  298 

Nelson,  Lord,  164 
Nepal,  188 

Newberry,  John,  visits  India,  22 
Nicholson,  John,  234,  301,  302 
Nizam  of  South  India,  69,  164 
Xizamat  Adalat,  159 
North,  Lord,  Regulation  Act  of 
1773,  1 18 

Northbrook.  Lord,  331 
Nott,  General,  234,  236 
Nun,  Thomas,  his  Tract,  36,  37 
Nundcoomar.  See  Xanda  Kumar 

O 

Ochterlony,  General,  and 
Ghurka  War,  189  ; death  of, 
203 

Omichund.  See  Aminchand 
Ophir,  3 
Opium,  366 
Orissa  Famine,  321 
Ormuz,  conquest  of,  21  ; cap- 
tured by  English  fleet,  35 
Oudh,  1 13,  123,  125,  139,  169, 
262,  263,  264,  280 
Outram,  222,  300 
Oxus  River,  327 

P 

Palmer  and  Co.,  banking  firm 
of,  198 

Palmerston,  speech  in  1855,  273 


Palmyra,  the  Tadmor  of  old,  3 ; 
influence  of  its  art  on  India, 
7 ; razed  to  the  ground,  8 
Pandu  Nadi,  297 
Panjdeh,  343 
Panipat,  123 
Panjkora  River,  349 
Panniar,  battle  of,  239 
Patiala,  Maharaja  of,  301 
Pearse,  Colonel,  145 
Peel  of  the  Shannon,  308 
Periyar  project,  377 
Permanent  settlement,  154-8 
Perron,  176 

Peshawar  held  by  John  Law- 
rence, 301 

Peshwa,  123,  140,  172,  192,  196 
Petroleum.  378 
Phayre,  Colonel,  334 
Philosophy,  Indian  and  Greek,  7 
Pindaris,  187,  191 
Pitt,  Indian  Bill  of,  150,  137 
Pliny,  7 

Pocock,  Admiral,  relieves 
Madras,  105 
Pollilur,  battle  of,  146 
Pollock,  General,  235 
Pondicherry,  69,  144 
Poona,  140 

Popham,  Captain,  142 
Population,  364  ; poverty  of,  364 
Porto  Novo,  battle  of,  146 
Portuguese  in  India,  12-36  ; 
early  Viceroys,  20 ; loss  of 
Empire,  35 
Postage,  268 

Pottinger's  defence  of  Herat, 
217 

Prendergast,  General,  342 
Press,  freedom  of,  204,  342 
Proclamation  of  Queen,  314,  372 
Provincial  Civil  Service,  370 
Punjab,  216  ; Board,  258  ; an- 
nexation of,  258 
Purnaiya,  168 

Q 

Queen  proclaimed  Empress, 
334  ; Proclamation  of,  372 
Quetta,  335,  359 
I Quinton,  Mr.,  345 


39« 


INDEX. 


R 

Ragunath  Rao  (Raghuba),  140 
Railways,  323.  359,  375 
Ramnagar,  battle  of,  257 
Rangoon,  202 

Ranjit  Singh,  184,  217,  240,  243, 
248 

Rathgarh,  capture  of,  31 1 
Rawlinson,  Sir  Henry,  234,  326 
Raymond,  George,  first  voyage 
to  India,  25 
Raymond,  160 
Regulation  Act  of  1773,  118 
Reinhardt,  109 

Remarriage  of  Hindu  widows, 
210 

Renaud,  Major,  296 
Revenue,  opium,  366  ; salt,  367 
Ripon,  Lord,  342 
Roberts,  Lord,  308,  337,  339,  342 
Robertson,  Surgeon-Major,  347, 
349 

Roe,  Sir  Thomas,  his  embassy, 
59 

Rohilkhand,  125 
Rohillas,  123.  125,  127 
Rose,  Sir  Hugh,  in  Central 
India,  311-13 

Rumbold,  Sir  William,  198 
Rupee,  fall  of,  363 
Russia,  183,  217,  324,  331,  336, 
344 

Ryswick,  Treaty  of,  45 
S 

Saadut  Ali,  160 
Sadr  Diwani  Adalat,  159 
Safdar  Alt,  69 
Sagar,  relief  of,  31 1 
Salbai,  Treaty  of,  144 
Sale,  Sir  Robert,  250 
Salisbury,  Lord,  and  Afghani- 
stan. 335 
Salsette,  140,  143 
Salkeld,  Lieutenant,  302 
Sambalpur  lapses,  266 
Sambre,  or  Samru,  109 
Sandeman,  Sir  Robert,  358 
San  Stefano,  Treaty  of,  336 
Satara  annexed.  2 06 


Sati,  or  widow-burning,  noticed 
by  Greeks,  5 ; by  Ralph  Fitch, 
23  ; 206 
Savandrug,  154 

Secundra  Bagh,  304  ; captured, 
308 

Segauli,  Treaty  of,  190 
Senapati  at  Manipur,  345 
Sepoys,  270,  275 
Seringapatam,  154  ; capture  of, 
167 

Settlement,  land,  154-8  ; in 
Madras,  199  ; in  North-West 
Provinces,  206 
Shah  Alam,  109,  113,  161 
Shah  Jahan,  62 
Shah  Najaf  captured,  308 
Sher  Ali,  326,  332 
Sheridan,  150 

: Sherpur  cantonments,  340 
Shitab  Rai,  128,  132 
Sholinghar,  146 
Shore,  Sir  John,  156,  159 
Shuja-ud-Daula,  109,  125 
Shuja-ul-Mulk,  driven  from 
Kabul,  217  ; restored  by  Eng- 
lish, 220  ; slain,  235 
Siam,  360 

Sikhs,  183,  245  ; persecution  of, 
246  ; first  war,  250-4 ; second 
war,  257 

Sind,  220  ; annexed,  238 
Sindhia,  123,  238,  313 
Siraj-ud-Daula,  90-102 
Sitabaldi,  defence  of,  197 
Sitana,  319 
Sivaji,  63 

Skene,  Captain,  31 1,  345 
Sleeman,  Colonel,  and  Thags,  213 
Smith,  Sir  Harry,  252 
Soame,  Sir  Stephen,  26 
Sobraon,  battle  of,  253 
Spanish  Armada,  21 
Staunton,  Colonel,  195 
Steam  Navigation,  379 
Stephen,  Sir  James,  on  trial  of 
Nanda  Kumar,  133,  329 
Stephen,  Leslie,  329 
Stevens,  Thomas,  visits  India, 
22  ; his  letters,  22 
Stewart,  Sir  Donald,  337 


INDEX. 


399 


Stirling,  Major,  298 
Strachey,  Colonel  Richard,  323 
Suez  Canal,  331,  380 
Suffren,  Admiral,  146 
Sultanpet,  166 

Surji  Arjangaon,  Treaty  of,  177 
Swally,  fight  off,  33 

T 


Tanjore,  169 
Tansa  reservoir,  375 
Tantia  Topi,  291,  310,  312,  314 
Tara  Bhai,  238 
Tavernier,  66 

Taxation,  364.  Sec  Revenue  and 
Land 

Taylor,  Colonel  Meadows,  and 
Thags,  213 
Tea,  383 

Tej  Singh,  249,  252,  255 
Telegraph,  268 

Tenancy  Act,  Bengal  1885,  158 
Tenasserin  ceded,  203 
Tennyson,  Poem  Akbar,  67 
Thackwell,  Sir  Joseph,  253 
Thags,  211-13 
Theebaw,  King,  342 
Thevenot,  account  of  Thags,  2 l 1 
Tilsit,  183 

Timur,  or  Tamerlane,  56 
Tipu  Sultan,  147,  154.  163,  tfi7 
Todd,  d’Arcy,  223 
Tombs,  Brigadier,  320 
Towerson,  Captain,  massacred 
at  Amboyna,  38 

Trade,  185  ; to  India  thrown 
open,  198 

Trades  increase,  33 
Travancore,  152 
Trichinopoli,  siege  of,  77 
Tulsi  Bai,  196 
Turkey  and  Russia,  336 
Turkmanchi,  Treaty  of,  217 
Tytler,  Col.  Fraser,  304 

U 

Umra  Khan  of  Jandol,  348 
Unao,  battle  of,  299 
Universities,  388 
Utrecht,  Treaty  of,  46 


V 

Vans  Agnew,  255 

Vansittart,  Governor  of  Bengal. 

107 

Vasco  da  Gama  sails  for  India, 
12  ; taken  prisoner,  14  ; his 
revenge  on  the  Moors,  16 
Vellore  Mutiny,  181 
Venice  founded,  11 
Ventura,  General,  247 
Versailles,  Peace  of,  148 
Viceroy’s  council,  368 
Viktevitch  at  Kabul,  218 
Voyages,  early,  29,  31,  32,  33  ; 
later,  36 


W 


Wahabis,  318 

Wake,  Herwold,  at  Arrah,  288 
Wandewash,  145 
Wargaon,  convention  of,  141 
Water  supply,  375 
Waterman,  Captain,  309 
Watson,  Admiral,  94 
Wellesley,  Marquess,  161-81 
Wellesley,  Colonel  Arthur,  165 
Wellesley,  Hon.  H.,  171 
West,  Sir  Ravmond,  389 
Wheeler,  Sir  Hugh,  at  Cawnpur, 


290  < , 

Whish, General,  captures  Multan, 


Whitchurch,  Surgeon-Captain, 
348 

Widow-burning,  206 
Willoughby  at  Delhi,  284 
Wilson,  Mr.,  Finance  Minister, 
316 

Windham,  General,  307,  310 
Wolseley,  Captain,  308 
Wood,  Captain  Benjamin,  26 
Wood,  Sir  C.  (Lord  Halifax), 
268,  387 


Y 

Yakub  Khan,  337,  339 
Yunnan,  360 

Z 


Zamindars,  155 
Zhob  Valley,  359 


tEbe  Ston?  of  tbe  IRations. 


Messrs.  G.  P.  PUTNAM’S  SONS  take  pleasure  in 
announcing  that  they  have  in  course  of  publication,  in 
co-operation  with  Mr.  T.  Fisher  Unwin,  of  London,  a 
series  of  historical  studies,  intended  to  present  in  a 
graphic  manner  the  stories  of  the  different  nations  that 
have  attained  prominence  in  history. 

In  the  story  form  the  current  of  each  national  life  is 
distinctly  indicated,  and  its  picturesque  and  noteworthy 
periods  and  episodes  are  presented  for  the  reader  in  their 
philosophical  relation  to  each  other  as  well  as  to  universal 
history. 

It  is  the  plan  of  the  writers  of  the  different  volumes  to 
enter  into  the  real  life  of  the  peoples,  and  to  bring  them 
before  the  reader  as  they  actually  lived,  labored,  and 
struggled — as  they  studied  and  wrote,  and  as  they  amused 
themselves.  In  carrying  out  this  plan,  the  myths,  with 
which  the  history  of  all  lands  begins,  will  not  be  over- 
looked, though  these  will  be  carefully  distinguished  from 
the  actual  history,  so  far  as  the  labors  of  the  accepted 
historical  authorities  have  resulted  in  definite  conclusions. 

The  subjects  of  the  different  volumes  have  been  planned 
to  cover  connecting  and,  as  far  as  possible,  consecutive 
epochs  or  periods,  so  that  the  set  when  completed  will 
present  in  a comprehensive  narrative  the  chief  events  in 


the  great  Story  of  the  Nations  ; but  it  is,  of  course, 
not  always  practicable  to  issue  the  several  volumes  in 
their  chronological  order. 

The  “Stories”  are  printed  in  good  readable  type,  and 
in  handsome  i2mo  form.  They  are  adequately  illustrated 
and  furnished  with  maps  and  indexes.  Price,  per  vol., 
cloth,  $1.50.  Half  morocco,  gilt  top,  $1.75. 

The  following  are  now  ready  (Jan.,  1897): 


GREECE.  Prof.  Jas.  A.  Harri- 
son. 

ROME.  Arthur  Gilman. 

THE  JEWS.  Prof.  James  K.  Hos- 
mer. 

CHALDEA.  Z.  A'.  Ragozin. 
GERMANY.  S.  Baring-Gould. 
NORWAY.  Hjalmar  H.  Boye- 

sen, 

SPAIN.  Rev.  E.  E.  and  Susan 
Hale. 

HUNGARY.  Prof.  A.  Vambe"ry. 
CARTHAGE.  Prof.  Alfred  J. 
Church. 

THE  SARACENS.  Arthur  Gil-  j 
man. 

THE  MOORS  IN  SPAIN.  Stan- 
ley Lane-Poole. 

THE  NORMANS.  Sarah  Orne 
Jewett. 

PERSIA.  S.  G.  W.  Benjamin. 
ANCIENT  EGYPT.  Prof.  Geo. 
Rawlinson. 

ALEXANDER’S  EMPIRE.  Prof. 

J.  P.  Mahaffy. 

ASSYRIA.  Z.  A.  Ragozin. 

THE  GOTHS.  Henry  Bradley. 
IRELAND.  Hon.  Emily  Lawless. 
TURKEY.  Stanley  Lane-Poole. 
MEDIA,  BABYLON,  AND  PER- 
SIA. Z.  A.  Ragozin. 
MEDI/EVAL  FRANCE.  Prof. 

Gustave  Masson. 

HOLLAND.  Prof.  J.  Thorold 
Rogers. 

MEXICO.  Susan  Hale. 
PHOENICIA,  Geo.  Rawlinson. 


THE  HANSA  TOWNS.  Helen 
Zimmern. 

EARLY  BRITAIN.  Prof.  Alfred 
J.  Church. 

THE  BARBARY  CORSAIRS. 

Stanley  Lane-Poole. 

RUSSIA.  W.  R.  Morfill. 

THE  JEWS  UNDER  ROME.  W. 

D.  Morrison. 

SCOTLAND.  John  Mackintosh. 
SWITZERLAND.  R.  Stead  and 
Mrs.  A.  Hug. 

PORTUGAL.  H.  Morse  Stevens. 
THE  BYZANTINE  EMPIRE.  C. 

W.  C.  Oman. 

SICILY.  E.  A.  Freeman. 

THE  TUSCAN  REPUBLICS. 
Bella  Duffy. 

POLAND.  W.  R. :Morfill. 
PARTHIA.  Geo.  Rawlinson. 
JAPAN.  David  Murray. 

THE  CHRISTIAN  RECOVERY 
OF  SPAIN.  H.E.  Watts. 
AUSTRALASIA.  Greville  Tre- 
garthen. 

SOUTHERN  AFRICA.  Geo.  M. 

Theal. 

VENICE.  Alethea  Wiel. 

THE  CRUSADES.  T.  S.  Archer 
and  C.  L.  Kingsford. 

VEDIC  INDIA.  Z.  A.  Ragozin. 
BOHEMIA.  C.  E.  Maurice. 
CANADA.  J.  G.  Bourinot. 

THE  BALKAN  STATES.  Wil- 
liam Miller. 

BRITISH  RULE  IN  INDIA.  R. 
W.  Frazer, 


Iberoes  of  tbe  Iflations. 

EDITED  BY 

EVELYN  ABBOTT,  M.A.,  Fellow  of  Balliol  College,  Oxford. 


A SERIES  of  biographical  studies  of  the  lives  and  work 
of  a number  of  representative  historical  characters  about 
whom  have  gathered  the  great  traditions  of  the  Nations 
to  which  they  belonged,  and  who  have  been  accepted,  in 
many  instances,  as  types  of  the  several  National  ideals. 
With  the  life  of  each  typical  character  will  be  p/esented 
a picture  of  the  National  conditions  surrounding  him 
during  his  career. 

The  narratives  are  the  work  of  writers  who  are  recog- 
nized authorities  on  their  several  subjects,  and,  while 
thoroughly  trustworthy  as  history,  will  present  picturesque 
and  dramatic  “stories  ” of  the  Men  and  of  the  events  con- 
nected with  them. 

To  the  Life  of  each  “Hero”  will  be  given  one  duo- 
decimo volume,  handsomely  printed  in  large  type,  pro- 
vided with  maps  and  adequately  illustrated  according  to 
the  special  requirements  of  the  several  subjects.  The 
volumes  will  be  sold  separately  as  follows : 

Cloth  extra $i  50 

Half  morocco,  uncut  edges,  gilt  top  . . . I 75 


The  following  are  now  ready  (Jan.,  1897): 

Nelson,  and  the  Naval  Supremacy  of  England.  By  W.  Clark 
Russell,  author  of  “ The  Wreck  of  the  Grosvenor,”  etc. 

Gustavus  Adolphus,  and  the  Struggle  of  Protestantism  for  Exist- 
ence. By  C.  R.  L.  Fletcher,  M.  A.,  late  Fellow  of  All  Souls  College. 
Pericles,  and  the  Golden  Age  of  Athens.  By  Evelyn  Abbott,  M.A. 
Theodoric  the  Goth,  the  Barbarian  Champion  of  Civilisation.  By 
Thomas  Hodgkin,  author  of  “ Italy  and  Her  Invaders,”  etc. 

Sir  Philip  Sidney,  and  the  Chivalry  of  England.  By  H.  R.  Fox- 
bourne,  author  of  “The  Life  of  John  Locke,”  etc. 

Julius  Caesar,  and  the  Organisation  of  the  Roman  Empire.  By  W. 

Warde  Fowler,  M.A.,  Fellow  of  Lincoln  College.  Oxford. 

John  Wyclif,  Last  of  the  Schoolmen  and  First  of  the  English  Re- 
formers. By  Lewis  Sergeant,  author  of  “ New  Greece,”  etc. 
Napoleon,  Warrior  and  Ruler,  and  the  Military  Supremacy  of 
Revolutionary  France.  By  W.  O’Connor  Morris. 

Henry  of  Navarre,  and  the  Huguenots  in  France.  By  P.  F.  Willert, 
M.A.,  Fellow  of  Exeter  College,  Oxford. 

Cicero,  and  the  Fall  of  the  Roman  Republic.  By  J.  L.  Strachan 
Davidson,  M.A. , Fellow  of  Balliol  College,  Oxford. 

Abraham  Lincoln,  and  the  Downfall  of  American  Slavery.  By 
Noah  Brooks. 

Prince  Henry  (of  Portugal)  the  Navigator,  and  the  Age  of  Dis- 
covery. By  C.  R.  Beazley,  Fellow  of  Merton  College,  Oxford. 
Julian  the  Philosopher,  and  the  Last  Struggle  of  Paganism  against 
Christianity,  By  Alice  Gardner. 

Louis  XIV.,  and  the  Zenith  of  the  French  Monarchy.  By  Arthur 
Hassall,  M.A.,  Senior  Student  of  Christ  Church  College,  Oxford. 
Charles  XII.,  and  the  Collapse  of  the  Swedish  Empire,  1682-1719. 

By  R.  Nisbet  Bain. 

Lorenzo  de’  Medici.  By  Edward  Armstrong,  M.A. 

Jeanne  d’Arc.  By  Mrs.  Oliphant. 

Christopher  Columbus.  By  Washington  Irving. 

Robert  the  Bruce,  and  the  Struggle  for  Scottish  Independence. 

By  Sir  Herbert  Maxwell.  M.P. 

To  be  followed  by  : 

The  Cid  Campeador,  and  the  Waning  of  the  Crescent  in  the  West. 

By  H.  Butler  Clarke,  Windham  College,  Oxford. 

Hannibal,  and  the  Crisis  of  the  Struggle  between  Carthage  and 
Rome.  By  W.  O’Connor  Morris,  author  of  “Napoleon,”  etc. 
Moltke,  and  the  Military  Supremacy  of  Germany.  By  Spencer 
Wilkinson,  University  of  London. 

Bismarck.  The  New  German  Empire,  How  it  Arose  and  What  it 
Displaced.  By  J.  W.  Hedlam,  M.A.,  Fellow  of  King’s  College, 
Cambridge. 

Judas  Maccabaeus,  the  Conflict  between  Hellenism  and  Hebraism. 

By  Abraham  Isaacs,  author  of  the  “ Life  of  the  Jews  in  the  Middle 
Ages.” 

Henry  V.,  the  English  Hero  King.  By  Charles  L.  Kingt'ord,  jo;nt- 
author  of  the  “ Story  of  the  Crusades.” 


NEW  YORK 


G.  P.  PUTNAM’S  SONS 


L-INTOt 


